Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line. With Skip rictor it's crazy gas can you trim? You just watch him as we suppotasys gass back again, not a sign gas sun beamon of Welcome to Garden Line. We are glad you're listening this morning. Hey, we got another gardening weekend. I tell you we have been fortunate and so far this spring.
Let's hope this holds up that on these weekends, we just are having some unbelievably good weather. You know. I as long as it's not raining, I am happy. On a weekend that is for sure. We get a little cloud cover, that's okay, that's okay, temperatures are mild. It's good to get outside there. This past week I've been visiting some garden centers, driving around, just checking things out, visiting some suppliers and things, and oh my gosh, it is color color color all over the place.
If you haven't gotten your vegetable transplants yet this weekend, that's the time to do it, you know, things like tomatoes. We have this little game we play It's like when will the last frostby game? And you know, if I were saying aside from frost wind to planet Tomato, I'd say plant them in February, back in February, mid February. But most years we're going to get a frost after that. I plant mine early because I cover mine up. I don't mind covering them. I want a good early
start. But we're hitting the point now where you know, on the average we should be done with this. I look ten days ahead in the weather and don't see anything close to a drop into frosty temperatures. So I'm making an official call. I could be wrong. You know, there are exceptions to the weather. It's only a guess. The past does not dictate the future. Let that soak in for a minute. When it comes to the
weather. The past does not dictate the future. Okay, But when we are looking at getting things going in the spring, getting tomatoes in as soon as we can is important. And here's why summer's coming. When we get daytimes up in the nineties, nighttimes in the upper seventies. The pollen, the way the pollen works in the flower, it doesn't it doesn't pollinate the flower correctly. And that's why you don't get good fruit set on your big
slicer tomatoes when it comes to summertime. So get them in now. You just have Every day you get them in earlier is another day you're going to have a tomato production before we hit the time when fruit doesn't set. So get them in now. Choose fast varieties too. By the way, there are one thousand great tomatoes out there, lots of great tomatoes. And I wouldn't diss any tomato when it comes to to you know, going out and picking a fresh tomato and enjoying it and eating it. But here's what I
would say. If you can get tomatoes that reach days to harvest faster, you're going to get more You're going to get more fruit. You've heard me talk about a'smite before, but I don't often talk about it from a vegetable garden standpoint. Now. It's primarily when we think of azmite, we think about put it out in the yard. You get it out once a year. A sole test will tay if you need it more often than that, But get it out there, apply it, don't put it in the hopper
with your fertilizer spreader. But apply it in a separate application. You can do it the same day and get it out there and get it watered in. That's what we're doing now in the yard. But what about the vegetable garden. I like to use it in a vegetable garden. And here's why. When you eat produce, you want a good stock of all kinds of quality nutrients in your produce as well. And so the more we build up our soil number one, the better our plants are going to be, the
more productive our plants are going to be. But also the produce we eat is chock full of all the things that our body needs. Now, for azamite in my garden, I'd put it out about ten pounds per thousand square feet or a pound per hundred square feet and just mix it into the soil, because in a vegetable garden, unlike a lawn, you can just spade or roto till it in and get it right down into the soil zone.
Putting it on top is just fine too, But in the vegetable garden, I generally use a spade and just kind of scratch up the soil a little bit to get it in there, and it works. Well, you can go to Azmitetexas dot com find out more about it. But it is this is the time. You should always have a bag on hand because there's always a time to use it. Enhancing your flower beds, enhancing your vegetable garden, enhancing your lawn, however you want to go about that, there's always
a time. In fact, I always have a couple of bags on hand ready to go, so that way, whatever I'm going to do, it's time and with as might, you know, unlike our fertilizing schedule, with ays of might you can put down any time you want. There's not you need to get it down right now. If your soil is deficient in micronutrients, then now is the time you have to get it down. But otherwise, just when you can, when you get around to it, go ahead and do that. A couple of weeks ago, I was out at Ana
Plants and Produce, and I love going out there. It's just I don't know, you know, I've watched that place grow over the years, and I remember when it was a lot smaller than it is today. Well now it's sprawling all over the place, and boy are they loaded up. They've gotten in some new shipments of color they've gotten in their citrus trees and lots
of color for the landscape, and it just looks good. If you live up there on one oh five, by the way, they're on the east side of Montgomery, So all you folks up at Lake Conroe, this is the backyard nursery for you. I mean, just drive around the corner and they're there. They can do some work you need. Some still need early clean up out around your house. You know, the landscape, the beds and things. They hire an expert. They have an expert landscape crew you
can hire to come out and do that. Ask them for a copy in my garden schedules. I'm a lawn care schedules. When you go, they have one there at the counter. I would say, just print it up yourself and go in. And if you need nitrophoss, if you need Nelson, if you need microlife, you talk about airloom, soil, nature's way resources. They carry all of that and ana plants and produce and in fact they have one of those little dispensers where you can bring your old jugs of
microlife and Nelson's and refill them at a very considerable cost savings. It's very worthwhile to hang on with those plastic jugs. We got enough plastic in the world. Just bring your old jug back and they can pull it up right there at A and A. I think that's a good idea. I wish more products in life for that way. I'd be willing to go to the grocery store, you know, take hands soap or I don't know, just whatever kinds of products you buy in the house, just be able to refill
them right there take it back home. I know that's a complication, but hey, I'd be willing to do it. Like I said, got enough plastic out there in the world, so every a little bit that we can
say is important. I was looking at a tree that blew over the other day right outside the radio station here, and it just soil was soggy, wet, got a little bit of wind and there, you know, just finally reached a point where the tree went over, and it just reminded me that now's the time to make sure your trees are ready for the summer season that's coming ahead. It's always a good time to have your trees taken care
of. But Martin Spoon Moore is our local expert in that Marn's been doing this for many, many years, decades as a matter of fact, and it's time to call a professional like Martin to come out. He'll tell you if you need pruning or if you don't, and if you do, what to do. I looked at a pruning job yesterday. That was a butcher job. That what they did to those trees will never be outgrown, and I just looked at it just thinking, man, we got to get away
from that stuff. Affordable Tree Service does it right? Afftree Service dot com or call Martin, either he or his wife Joel'll answer seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three and he'll come out for one hundred and fifty dollars and do a consultation. I mean, if you just need somebody to come out and look. Now, if you end up going ahead and you know, going for the job, well that'll apply. You've already paid for part of the cost. But it can't run around everywhere just looking at
every tree a person has a question about. But have him come out and take a look. He knows what he's doing. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the garden line. Hey, we're glad you're listening today. Boy, do we have a lot to talk about. It is spring and there is plenty to be doing in the garden. Let's start by heading straight off to the phones. We're going to talk to Pete in Spring. Hello, Pete. Hey, how are you
happy Saturday? Thank you. My favorite thing about this show on Saturday meets that I'm off work and going home. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Got a question about dragon flies. I have a ton of them, and I've never seen this bending but the yard, around the door, everywhere, and I used to try to save them so they would eat mesquitos. Well, I'm sorry, the mosquito hawks, not the dragon flies hawks. Oh okay, huh yeah, and they are everywhere, Okay,
what to do? Not a problem? I mean, it's really nothing you need to worry about. They they're just not a big concern in my opinion. And if you to do something about it would be going out and just basically nuke and everything so that when they land on anything or whatever, and that's just unnecessary. You know, you don't need to go through that. It's just they're just there. Yeah. Well, and they'll they'll not be like they are now the whole time there. Their numbers are going to drop
down pretty quick here. I don't know when, but yeah, they come and go because the freeze or the brain or a lack of brain or yeah, it could be a lot of things. It depends on the insects specifically. But yeah, insects are that way. You know, we we go through Remember well you know about love bugs, right that that show up. Yeah, so that's a seasonal thing. And they live in decaying organic matter on the soul surface, and the larva do feeding in that, and then
here come the adults. And so again don't don't worry about those the crane flies. And you bet, Pete, Yes, I appreciate your call. Thanks a lot. I was busying with Mike over at microlife. By the way, Mike and micro that micro doesn't come from Mike. Mike talk about Mike's around micro life fertilizers. They've got a wide range organic fertilizer. I got them on the on the the sheet, the lawn care sheet that I have out, you can find all the microlife that uh you need to get
your lawn in good shape. We're talking about the humates plus. You know humates. So if you start with organic matter, polygrass, kipling, crip clippings, pollow leaves, something like that, you compost it down. Now you got compost in a much smaller volume. You take compost and let it continue to decompose down to the stage we call humus. And humus is only a fraction of the amount that was in the compost because you've taken it all
the way down to that final stage. Microlife, you mate, is concentrated compost in a bag. You buy a bag of microlite HU makes plus that's a purple bag, and you basically are getting a truckload of compost. I mean you're getting a lot of material that has been decomposed down and decomposed down and decomposed down to that final state. Okay, And so when you put that out, that works its way into the soil and it improves soil structure.
It is also helpful for the beneficial organisms that are in the soil. In fact, that has those on it itself when you buy it from microlife, and you just need to put that out, and you need to do that on a regular basis over a period of years. And as you do that soil gets better and better and better. I mean, you'll see results the first year, but I'm just saying nature builds soil slowly. Over time.
Anything that was once alive becomes part of the soil again. And when it becomes part of the soil, it's part of building better soil, more air rated, higher microbial activity, better water infiltration with our clays. That's really important. Microlife humates plus. I would remember that because when you fertilize, this isn't and in place a fertilizer. This would be something you would do as an additional application. The composted or concentrated compost in a bag for
Microlife humants plus widely available. Go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You'll find out exactly where you can get it, which is pretty much everywhere. I want to head out now and talk to Linda in Memorial. Hello, Linda, Hi, Skip, how are you? I'm well? How are you? I'm good? I stay up so that I can talk with you early. All right, I need some help. I need to be able to plan a gardenia without killing it. I kill four of them already, Okay,
all right, I don't know two of them. I planted in the ground and they started having yellow leaves, and I thought it's because they need iron, so I dump a bunch of iron on it. Okay, now that the Cornelius people told me that I was drowning them. Okay, so they die and the two that I turned it in pots, I didn't wanter them that much, but they still die anyway, and I have Okay. I don't know if you can remember back to when you saw the yellow leaves.
You know, that may probably was last season, probably, but anyway, do you remember if it was the new leaves at the ends of the shoots that were yellow, or was it the older leaves further back down the shoote that was yellow the older older? Okay, so that's not an iron problem. Your iron is not the concern, so we can eliminate that one.
It could be a lack of water. I don't know. If you've got like apotheos ivy in the house and you forget to water it and it starts to will and then you water it and it perks up, but then the old leaves turn yellow. The response to that going through the drought stress can cause old leaves to turn yellow. On some plants that could be a problem or excess water that actually is starting to stress or kill roots where the roots can't get oxygen, but that typically leads to a root rot that kills
the whole plant. So it guardinas like that because those two that are planted on the ground tongue yellow after lots of rain. And they also happened to be right where the sprinkle system. Just don't water on them, okay, and I didn't realize that, I know that they were. Yeah, And if you're not sure anybody listening has garninas or really other plants as well like that, just take a trial and dig down somewhere near the bottom of the
bush. Doesn't have to be right against the bush, but a little bit further out. Tag down about four inches and feel the soil with your hands. And you can feel when soil is mucky wet, or when it's moderately moist, or when it's still a little dry. And that's really what matters is how wet is it at the root zone. You know, we could say water this much or this often or whatever. You may have a clay
soil, you may have a sandy soil. I like the feel the soil test because that way you know for sure, because we do have rain. Like you said, there are areas that are load lying and tend to collect and hold water, and so there's a lot of factors. But too wet or too dry is a problem for plants in general. And I think your Guardena's either on the dry side or the wet side, or that fluctuation is
probably what's going on. I would something else that can cause older leaves to turn yellow, but not just suddenly a leaf turns all yellow, but gradually losing their color is a lack of nitrogen, and you might want to get an azalea camellia type acidic fertilizer for that. Have you ever tried fertilizing them. I have been fertilizing them with the miracle growth. Okay, okay, the liquid the liquid. No, oh, the granary. Why don't you
switch over? Why don't you switch over? We've got the folks at Microlife make an excellent acidic fertilizer for azaleas. You can do that for Nelson and nitrophoss both. You can get fertilizers all three really that are that are good for acidic loving plants. So when you go in somewhere to shop. Switch over to one of those fertilizers and say, I want the fertilizer for azalias.
Uh. And if you if you go online to my schedule online the lawn care schedule at gardening with skip dot com, you can get the lawn schedule and if you look at the bottom, it's got the names of the companies and the products that they have. Now, those are lawn fertilizers, but each of those companies has a fertilizer for acid loving plants like blueberries and
azaleas and camellias and gardenias, all of those kinds of plants. Paris is another one, and I would ask where you shop for the acid loving plant fertilizer. Okay, all right, okay, But now I am just about to plan the fifth one. Okay, how do I prepare the soil so that it is to be Okay? It could be that I didn't know how
to plan the other one. Either, get you a good quality mix, a good quality mix for it's called a bed mix, and Heirloom Soils makes a number of different blends for your beds, and you buy it by the bag. You're not going to need a lot, so with what you know
planting one plant. So just get you some bags of an heirloom soil mix and mix it into the soil as best you can, and in as wide of an area as you can, not just a little in the hole, but you know, if you can get it six feet wide even or so, mix it in really well, and then add a little more up on top of the soil of the same bags and then dig the hole in plant
and that will get you set up. And in memorial there you've got You've got some ace hardware stores near you that will have those products that I'm talking about. Okay. It's called airloom soil mix, heirloom heirloom soil, and they have a number of different soils. Any of them will help. Any of them will work well for the blend that you would need to get your plant going. So you don't have to find just a certain one. If they do, if where you shop has one that's more for acidic type plants,
then go for that. But otherwise it may say vegetables and herbs on it. You can still use it for that guardina okay, okay. And they can as make a hole as possible, uh, a little bigger than the pot would be helpful. But the main thing is you're loosening up the soil in a big white area, mixing the good soil in with what's there on the site already, and then you're digging the hole and it doesn't really matter how big the hole is because you've already loosened the soil in a big
area to plant it. Okay, okay, okay, good luck with it. Thank you very much, you bet, thank you. I appreciate I appreciate your call very much. Yeah, it's you know that taking care of these acid loving plants, we just have to remember where they're from and what they like. Hey, for those of you added in Channed Forest, I want to remind you today that's in Richmond, by the way, and Channed
Forest is the one. If you're in Richmond heading forward sugar Land, it's off to the right if you go down FM twenty seven fifty nine two seven five nine, that's the road head down and you'll get to in Channed Forest and you will be so impressed when you get there. By the way, today, justin Oak and also Jay White from Texas Gardener are going to be there giving a talk at ten am this morning. Run over there and do that. Right after this show's over. They'll be talking. They have got
all kinds of color. Ask them to see the proven winner's table. It is amazing. Also, by the way, if you've never planted a Texas Mountain Laurel, that is an amazing tree. It's a native tree to Texas, native of the Texas hill country. So what we've got to do is we've got to give it a soil that drains really, really well and it has a fragrant boom you won't believe. We'll be right back, Welcome back to garden Line on what is going to be a banner day to get out
in the garden and get some gardening stuff done. Somebody asked me during break, what is the web address for the Encended Forest, And I want to give you that because you really need to see their website. It is amazing and all the stuff I'm talking about, photos of all the kinds of plants, what they're getting in, who's going to be there talking, It's all there. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond,
TX dot com. You can find it right there. Absolutely. Okay, what I'm going to head out now to Jersey Village and we're going to talk to George. Good morning, George, Yeah, good morning. So it's nice to talk to you again. I have two questions for you. A few weeks ago I asked you about planting potatoes and I got them in the ground there Yukon gold and some red brand, and I want to take your crack at sweet potatoes and I get all kinds of opinions out to plant them.
One is that they go there like regular potatoes, and the other one is no, you can put them on a trellisnil, hang from the leaves and stuff like that. So that's first question. Okay, Second question is second question is whenever one planting anything, I saw a well respected gardener say, put bonemeal and budmeal in the bottom of the plant and that'll be cause it's a grow, develop roots better and so on like that. So those are my questions. All right. Sweet potatoes are a root. They're not
a tuber. A regular potatoes grow off the stem of the plant above the seedpiece you planted. Sweet potatoes grow, and of course they're truly a root. What you need to do is get good quality we call them slips. It's a section of vine and they're not out yet because it's a little too cool to be planting sweet potatoes. They come a little bit later in the season. You want to get those slips. You put them right into the ground and they root so fast they are you know, they're easy to take
an unrooted slip in the ground. Keep it moist and it'll root and survive and grow. You want to follow carefully along, keeping the water even if you can. I can't control the rain, but as you are taking care of it, make sure that it has plenty of soil moisture but not soggy wet. If your soil is a heavy, heavy clay, you definitely want
to mix in some compost and things to loosen that up a bit. Sweet potatoes, if you look commercially at where they're grown, they're grown in sandy sandy loam types of soil in East Texas primarily, but they can be grown anywhere in the state in a backyard garden. The key to sweet potatoes is good sunlight and consistent soil moisture and moderate fertilizer, not too much, just moderate. Now, if you go online to the Aggie Horticulture website, you
can do a search for that. The Aggie Horticulture website has a vegetable section with a publication on how to grow sweet potatoes. It's only a few pages of full color and it will walk you through every step of exactly how to do it. More detail that I can get on the air. I would encourage you to get that. Either look at it on your computer or print it out and follow it carefully, because it is important that we do that. The potatoes do grow again underground, not up on the vines themselves.
You could trellis the vine to try to save space, but that's quite a job, and most people don't go through that. They just kind of let them sprawl. But if you needed to save space, you could try trellising the vine. But you're going to be out there every day grabbing a vine. Sticking it up on the trellis kind of winding it through a little bit, so it hangs on because sweet potatoes don't have tendrils to grab onto things.
Thank you, all right, good luck? You know the bone meal, no bone but blood, no, just use regular fertilizers on those. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with bone meal. It's it's phosphorus. There's nothing wrong with blood meal. It's primarily nitrogen. But just get with a good balanced fertilizer. You know, if if you're if you're insured in organic or synthetic, I can direct you to some good options for that. But just
a moderate amount of fertilizing. And when you look at that publication, it'll tell you exactly how much to put out to good Thank you very much. All right, all right, now, all I ask you, I don't know if you listen to guardline much, but all I ask of these kind of calls is you bring me half the sweet potatoes you grow. Drop them off at the station. We'll call it even all right. It's Lusashia whatever
is the Japanese. And my wife loves those things so good good. We'll see, we'll have fun with them, yes, sir, you bet. Yeah. See. The reason I ask everybody to bring me half their produce is because I'm spending all my time helping other people garden, and so you know, you gotta help me offset that because I'm not home right now getting my own garden in order. So hey, that's fair, right at least
to some people that people be of me. Spring Creek feed is up there in the Magnolia area, and if you're looking for your hometown feed store, if you're up around Grand Parkway, Hiaby two forty nine. You know Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight. That's way up north from for people in downtown Houston, Magnolia in twenty nine seventy eight. That whole area is served by Spring Creek Feed. They have everything you need. They've got every fertilizer
I'm talking about there. They got the pest and weed and disease control. If you have back your chickens, they got supplies for that. Do you need things to take care of your pond, you know, any kind of a herbicide, fungicide, pesticide for your garden and landscape, they got it. If you are an FFA or four h or if you're military senior citizens, there's discounts for those of you out there and they'll leaven special order. So go in visit with the folks. They're friendly, they don't bite.
In fact, they are some of the nicest folks you're going to run into at Sprint Greek Feed and you can get everything you need, including really quality stuff for your pets as well. So Sprink Greek feed up there in the I don't know why, I always want to say location up in the Magnolia area. They're on FM twenty nine seventy eight, makes it easy to find them. The other day I was out visiting with some of our garden centers and things, and I did a little spot on things that you put down
in your lawn right now. Fertilizers and the weed control products, just some of the options that are out there put on our Facebook page, and one of those is nitrofoss barricade. Nitrofoss barricade is designed to stop weed seeds from establishing in your lawn. So follow me on this one. There are two ways we approach weed problems other than growing good grass so it's dense and you
know it chokes out weeds. When it comes to a product approach, either you put on a pre emergent so that when the seeds try to sprout, and right now, crab grass, grasspur all the warm season, weeds are ready to sprout right now, and you need if you're going to use a pre emergent, you got to do it now or you'll wait too long. It'll be too late for a pre emergent. There's also post emergent that kills weeds that are existing. Okay, that's the weed. Everything you see,
that's all my lungs full of weeds. Those are winter weeds that are have grown up and you see them. It's the pre emergence. The barricade goes after, and so that's going to give you protection your lawn. If it's thin and sunlight hits the soil, you're gonna get weeds, and barricade helps shut them down. You put it down at the label rate. Follow the label that is the right rate to use. You go over doing any pesticide and you're asking for trouble. Okay, follow the label. Half inch of
water to water it in. That dissolves that product into the soil surface where it does its job and it works super super well. It's easy to find nitrofoss products. You can get nitrofas at Plantation Ace Hardware out there in Richmond Rosenberg. You can get it at Bearings Hardware both on Businet and West Teimer.
By the way, if you want a head maybe you for example, or are living out in the RCW nursery area, and I know Tombol Parkway, they've got all these kind of products as well from nitrofos yep, don't delay. Remember if you're going to use a pre emergent, now's the time it get it done, or it'll be too late. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call, it might be helped. I'll give that out today
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, welcome back to garden Line. I have a little public service announcement for those of you out in the Kingwood area. You know you got Warrens Southern Guardens in Kingwood Garden Center. Their Leap your Sale ends tomorrow, so you got today and tomorrow left. And here's what you can do with the Leap your sale. Heirloomsas rosoil, for example, that two or three, you purchase two
or three, the savings is huge on those asamite. I was just talking about that. This is a great time for their ten pound bag of azamite, which is what I would use for the vegetable garden, especially for that size. The sale on that again, there's a sale on both one or two if you're going to purchase them. And then Nelson, plant food and microlife in the jars. Okay, there's sales on those. It's a three four. Okay, save on the rose soil, save on asmites, save
on Nelson and microlife. I guess that's a four four. But anyway, it ends tomorrow, So get out there today. Go ahead and get some and pick it up. They have got a great selection still of red buds and Chinese fringe and saucer Magnolia's three of the best spring blooming trees in the world. Listen, if you want a beautiful spring blooming tree at your house, now's the time to plant it. Take care of it this year and for years you're going to have the blooming dividends to enjoy. There's a lot
of stuff going on out there. It's a beautiful color day at Warren's and a Kingwoock Garden Center. Get out there and enjoy it, have some fun. That's right. We're going to go out now to let's see, we're gonna head down to sugar Land and we're going to talk to Michael. Hello, Michael, good morning, Skid. I need your help. I follow the schedule. I've already put down the barricade. I'll already put down the fifteen five ten? Okay, when should I put down the blue label?
And what can I put on top of that? Once I put the blue label down to kind of give the yard extra boost? Something maybe something organic that I can top it off. I've got about twenty twenty one hundred square footage and I don't want to spend a whole bunch of money, would you suggest? So, So when you say there's there's a number of different blue labels products out there, what product are you talking about? Well, I'm using exclusively, I'm using the the nightro fous oh nitropos. Okay, well
that would be for controlling weeds. So what what? Yeah, it's got let's the ingredient that tremak? Is that what it is? I'm sorry said I didn't hear what you said. Say that again. The ingredient in the blue level blue label is it? We could trimac trimeac. Trimeac is a post emergence. So the barricade you put out prevents weed seeds from coming up the weed and feed combo and the blue label from nitrofoss is trimac and it kills existing weeds. So you need to wet your lawn barely just get the
foliage wet of the grass and the weeds. You put the nitrofuss the blue label out and it soaks into the tissues of those weeds and kills them. After you've had it on for about twenty four to forty eight hours, you can go ahead and water it and that moves the fertilizer itself down into the surface of the soil. But that is a fast releasing fertilizer that you would use for early green up in that blue label nitroface. After I've done that, Dan, what type of art? I mean, something really organic.
I don't want to put out cap manure somebody that's going to have the heart SMUK. I want to put something on top of it to give it that Last year I had a little bit of a problem give that extra hit. Start. Well, if you've done the fertilizer, it's an immediately available so you don't really need another nutrient boost. Now, if you've got the schedule, you see all the fertilizing we do through the year. I would consider a compost top dressing. You can spread that out and you're only putting it
like a quarter inch deep. I mean it's just a little bit over the surface and that does a number of beneficial things for the soil, especially as you do that each year over time, it just gets better and better. But the compost top dressing would be the next thing that you might want to consider. You can do that yourself with a rake. It's quite a bit of work, a little bit messy, or you can hire somebody to come and do that for you. You're in the Sugarland area, right, yes,
yes. And when you say the compost top dressing, is there a specific brand or that you suggest that I have a garden center deck right down the street. Yeah, I would prefer just a leaf mold compost. You can find that from air soils, you can find it from Nature's Way and the bags you can buy at bulk and have it delivered, or you can also call. We had a somebody I met the other day. I really
like this B and B turf Pros. They're family owned business. They're down there in your area and they service sugar Land and they do compost top dressing. Let me give you can I give you a phone number in an email? I mean a website forum? Yes, all right, because BnB turf Pros they can do that, and they they cover that whole area down there. I mean if you live in Missouri City or sugar Land or Fresno, even over to Pearland down in our Cola, Iowa colony, Menvilciena, all
that area down there south. Now, we have a compost top dressing company that can cover that area. All right, you got your pen I'm ready, yes, seven one three two three four fifty five ninety eight seven one three two two three four five five nine eight. And the website's really easy. It's a b B turf Pros with an S on the end. Bbturfpros
dot com. Family owned business. Had a really good conversation visiting with those folks the other day, and I would highly recommend that you just go ahead and give them a call because they have the equipment that can do it right. It does it fast, it gets it done, and it's just I just think that's the best way to go. All right, Hey, thanksgivings always. We appreciate you. Have a great day. Man. All right,
thank you, I appreciate that call. If you're looking for equality soil for containers, don't you don't have to looking further in jungle Land jungle land is distributed by nitrophos fertilizers, and it's got an outdoor and an indoor version. The outdoors called flour and vegetable planting soil. The indoor is called water saving potting soil because it has little crystals in it that hold onto water. So if you forget, I know, you don't forget. Some people forget
to water their plants. Those crystals have some extra water to help extend. Let's just say it makes it a little more forgiving if you forget a little bit to water. They have wonderful blends of all kinds of organic materials in these you know, aged decomposing materials, Canadian blond pede, micaro isiel, fungi, all of that in those jungle land products. And you know,
like any nitrofoss product, you can find jungle land everywhere. For example, in Janet Forest down in Richmond, Rosenberg has it, growers outlet up in Willis has it hiding and feed up in North I thirty five. Actually they're on a stupor airline up north. They've got it. Those nitrofoss products makes it really easy to do that. Let's head out to West Houston and we're going to talk to John. Hello John, Hey, good morning, Skip
and thanks for your program. I have a question about my Saint Augustine yard and I've been following the schedule for several years and it's I've had great results. But I've got a section of the yard in the front that the wife and I were going to rake, well, really rake the whole yard to de thatch a little bit. Last week seemed like we had a lot of
thatch. Well, this particular area looked kind of unusual in that it was just full of runners and I would reach down and grab a handful and it was like a carpet or canopy of runners, and you pulled them up and they'd be three and four feet long, just a big mesh. And when you pulled them up, there was pretty much bared hert underneath. And it just didn't seem like the grass was growing. There were no roots going from the runners into the ground. Very little, very very little. There was,
you know here and there. Another little bit piece of history is, you know, we went through the flood a few years back, and I think that side of the yard it's where the sheet rock was piled up. All right, Hey, John, I'm running short on time, so I want to be able to have time to answer, so I'm gonna I'm unfortunately,
I'll cut you there. When you see grass runners that are not pegging down roots and grabbing the soil and pushing roots down, that often is caused by excessive applications of fertilizers that prevent seeds from germinating the pre emergent types of things. When you overdo them, it has the same effect on those grass runners, So you want to try to avoid that. That is going to go away in time. I wouldn't worry about it right now. Proper mowing,
proper watering, proper fertilizing, especially the water and the fertilizer. We've been getting decent rain, but a good fertilizer. I would consider doing a deep time aerration, core aeration and compost top dressing on it. That would give you another boost in that area of the lawn. If you want to send me a photo of it, I'm gonna put you on hold here. As we hang up, maybe Josh can get to you and you can send
me some photo at a distance and close up. I may see something else, but right now I think i'd start with just going cultural with fertilizer and proper care. Sorry to have to run short here, but we do. We do have that that break coming up. Josh will pick up the phone and get you information on how to get a hold of me. If you want to do that, well, here we go, first hour in the books. We'll be right back. Katie r H. Garden Line does not
necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H. Garden Line with Skip rictor It's crazy Trim just watch him as so many pleas. Supt. Bazy, welcome back to guarden Line. Good to have you back today. Of course, this is a day for gardening. This is a day to talk about gardening. And remember there are no brown thumbs. There's only uninformed thumbs. And that's what we do for
four hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings here on garden Line. We help inform your thumb. By the way, I'm always curious how people listen to garden Line, and there are a lot of different ways. You can listen live on the radio. People driving around in the car, that's an easy time to listen. Just flip it over to katr eight seven forty am and you're there. You can listen on your computer if you wish to do that at
the house, and you can also listen on a app. For example, the iHeartMedia app is one of the places where you can listen to garden Line. You can listen to past podcast shows. When we finish a show, it's put up online as a podcast you can listen to you but you can also listen live that way. So stick your phone in your pocket and head out and get some gardening done and we'll talk you through it as we go through the morning. Don't forget about that not everybody has radio in the house
these days. If you notice that, not everybody just has them listening, but you sure can listen. I listened to a lot of things by podcast, and I listen to a lot of live radio through those apps as well, and that just makes it convenient. I turned my phone upside down you and get a speaker on the bottom, and they just keep it in my pocket and I'm just walking around listening to the radio. It's kind of cool. I enjoyed doing that, So don't forget to listen to Gardline that way
as well. I thought it plants for all seasons. Yesterday visiting with Sherry and just checking out all the buzz of activity out there. Boy, they have a excellent supply of all kinds of things. Do you need peppers or do you need tomatoes, for example, now's the time, especially the tomatoes. You got to get those things in right away. Let's do it. And they've got you set up. They have cherry tomatoes, they have paste tomatoes, they have slice or tomatoes, they have grape tomatoes. They got
everything you need. Herbs, my goodness, their herbs is out standing out there, it really is. And seed the seed rag wall. I just love sitting there. In fact, I have to wear a bib because I sit there staring at all these seeds and I drool just starts to come the car. It's like, oh boy, here we go. We're going to grow some stuff this year. So yeah, they can fixure up with everything
at Plants for All Seasons. They're easy to find. First of all, the phone number two eight one, three, seven six, sixteen forty six, the website it's easy. Plants for all seasons dot com. Plants for all Seasons dot com. They will turn your brown thumb green for sure because they have staff that knows what they're talking about. The direction to the right plant tells you how to take care of him. You got a problem, bring it in, bring a sample or a photo. They'll direct you the
product you need that's gonna work. And that alone is worth going to a quality place with knowledgeable staff like plants for all seasons. You're listening to garden line and our phone number, which I should be giving out all the time, and I just haven't done that today is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two kt r H makes
it easy to dial in and do that. You know, honey bees make our landscapes more productive, but they also help pollinate our blooms and help set fruit. So, for example, if you have fruit trees, if you've got vegetables in the garden, you will see better production, especially things like qukurbits that would be squash and cucumbers and melons that they help make sure you
get good fruit set. Why not put some bees in your backyard If you'd like to look into that, you should call the folks at the bee Supply out in Dayton, Texas. Now the Bee Supply they are experts in bees and they have outstanding trainings. They for example, they're beginning bee keeping glasses. Bee keeping glass is March ninth, about every two weeks, then March twenty third April thirteenth. You see what I'm talking about. Go to the
website vbsupply dot com thebsupply dot com. If you don't want to enter into the world to be keeping, you still need to go. They have an observation hive. Take your kids. They got to see this. You can watch the bees in action from behind a plate glass or plexiglass window and you get right up close to it. Is amazing cool. They also have the b Tours, the honey tours rather out at the bee Supply, where you get to taste all these different kinds of honey and you learn all about bees.
Again. Kids have got to go and do this. If you've got a garden club, if you've got a church group, pacific organization, get your friends and go out there. Find out when these are going to be at thebesupply dot com and make it just a fun trip with a group of friends. I've been out there a few times. I just love going to the be Supply. It is so cool. It really is it really is? Well, you're listening to the guardline. Number of things I wanted to
visit about today. One of the things that I like to touch base on. We're talking a lot about taking care of your lawns and getting all that right. It is also time to take care of the soil and your flower beds and your vegetable gardens. If you have not started your warm season planting yet, you need to. But first you want to make sure those soils look good and they perform well. That is very important. That's the foundation
and Nature's way resources. They've been specializing in this. I don't know for ages. They're the originators of leaf more composts that we talk about all the time. They're the originators of roast soil that we talk about all the time. They have a number of different blends and products for whatever plants you're growing, whatever situation you have, you got to get the soil ready first, So make sure your vegetable garden mix in some mix for vegetables, for herbs,
or for flowers or whatever you're growing. They can direct you to the right one. They got about a bag, and they got about the bulk. And if you're looking for an excuse. March ninth is the Spring Garden Festival. Go out there, pick up your bags while you're there, or give them a call and have them deliver a bulk load to your house. But March ninth they're going to have gardening education. They're going to have vendors, all kinds of things, some sangria to sip as you wander around and
learn. There's activities for the kids. It is quite the shindig at Nature's Way Resources. Now, if you're heading north on Interstate thirty five toward Conro where fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left, you just turn right across over the railroad tracks. The actual address is Sherbrooks Circle, but it's really easy to get to. You can give them a call. Nine three six two seven three twelve hundred nine three six two seven three twelve hundred. But
remember brown stuff before green stuff. Get the soil all right, then put your seeds and plants in. We're gonna we're gonna take a little break here. It's about time for that. Our phone number again seven to one three two point two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right back. Welcome back to the garden. Line. Good to have you with us today. Hey, I want to mention something to you. I am going to be up
at the Montgomery County Outdoor Home and Outdoor Living Show today. After the show, I'm gonna jump in a car here but head up to Montgomery County to Conro to the Lone Star Convention Center and I'm going to be giving a talk at the Home and Outdoor Living Show. I will also be there to answer your gardening questions. And as if that's not enough, I'm going to give them away some products from Nelson Fertilizers, the Genesis Transplant Mix. That's our
prime product. I'm gonna give away some others as well, but that's the one I want to talk about because I used it recently. What Here's what you do. You got a tomato you want to bump it up. You got a plant you want to mix in or mix in some quality materials in the soil and then plant your plant. Nelson Genesis Transplant Mix is just that. It's a six to one three fertilizer. It's designed to aid in getting that plant relocated, getting the new roots stimulated, and getting them growing.
It's got beneficial bacteria, it's got endo and ectomycorrhizal fungi. It has humates to condition the soil, other nutrients to encourage just the health of the soil and the proficiency of the plant's systems. So you get good growth, you get early establishment. Basically you're enhancing the biology of the soil and you're providing some nutrients. I'm going to give away several jars of that as well as a number of other jars of Nelson products today, So if you come,
you're going to go home with something. I've got something there at least let me put it this way until as long as supplies last. But I got a lot of supplies, so you should be okay, come on out and see me. I'll be there from twelve to one. I'm going to be give in my presentation, starting off at twelve, and then hanging around answering your guarding questions. Bring me pictures of plants that are having problems. Bring me things you need identified. If you put them in a little bag,
bring them in there. We will get it fixed and you will be ready to go. It is time to be ready to go. I'm going to head out now to run in Cleveland, Texas. Hello, Ron Good morning, Good morning. I got a Texas Mountain Laurel. It's been in the ground well, actually I talked to Randy Lemon and then I had put it in the ground and he passed away not long after that, so it's been
in the ground for a few years. I guess, Okay, put out these seed pods and I was wondering if I can propagate those seed pods, and any tips on it, you can. You can. Those pods have a very strong leathery coat. So if you have a red seed that's the fully mature seed that's kind of begun to dry out of the pod, you can nick it with a knife to break through that outer coat. You don't want to cut into the seed inside the coat, but just nick it with
a knife. That will allow moisture to get in and start the germination process better. Now, I want to give you a tip though, Ron, if you will let the pods get full sized but not dried, the seeds inside will not be red yet, but they fully have matured. You know, they're not halfway grown. They're full sized seeds. It just hasn't aged and dried and the seed turn red. They germinate right away, very easy,
but that's a tough Central Texas native. It's designed for all the seed not to germinate right away in a year, but to last through the years and eventually germinate. But if you catch it early, you can do it and that that mature but still green stage and it'll just it'll sprout right away for you. Well, I didn't catch them early because I left them on there. Okay, see if they'll drop or what they're going to do. So I left them on there, so you're pretty dry. Yeah, crack
the pods open, nick the coat like I told you. Yeah, and just put them in some good soil. Yeah, any kind of a mix, any any kind of a mix will be good. I would make sure the container has a little bit of size to it because that's going to want to send down roots. You also want if you can use a container that you know is square, so the roots just don't go around and around in it. That's good. There's a lot of ways to go about it. Bottom line is just get them in and get them going. It's a slow
growing plant, but it is a wonderful plant. Oh yeah, it is. Yeah, Well I appreciate it, all right. Thank you for those of you have never smelled a Texas Mountain, Laurel Bloom. Think back to your childhood days when you got that big old super bubble bubble gum, the grape flavored one. That's what these smell like. I mean they are you know. The term gaudie is usually something that we use for visual opinion. I would say this has a gaudy fragrance if you can, If you can
use the term that way, this would be a good way. It is a strong, I love it, good fragrance, really nice. Uh hey, have you been to the Antique Rosenporium lately? The Rosenporium is an outstanding place to go, viz. It is just fun. I mean you need an outing, you know, take some time and take your friends and go out there and see it. It is in on FM fifty in a north of Brenham, Texas. Okay, you head north out of Brenham on FM fifty. By the way, swing by and get you some blue belt laying
around the way out there. Blue bonnet season is coming up. What a great time to head out there. Let me give you their their website go to Antique Roseimporium dot com. That's easy. Antique Rosenporium dot com. Here's the phone number nine seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight nine seven nine eight three six five five four eight. The March event that you need to know about. There's always something going on at Anti Grows Imporium, but
the March event is the ninth and tenth. That's the spring celebration. I will be there on Saturday the ninth. I'll be giving a talk. There'll be other talks. The place will look unbelievable. They're gonna have an artisan market, They're gonna have speakers like myself, food trucks, and then all the plants and listen. Any kind of anti grows you can imagine, this is the place to get them, and also anything out There are roses,
but there's so much more. Perennials, boogainvillias, gerber daisies. Do you need stuff for the shade? They have it all the Antique Rose Emporium again Antiqurosimporium dot com. Just go to the website. You can learn about everything you need to know right there. Boy am I looking forward to heading out there being part of that. We're going to go to Old River and talk to Patrick Patrick. Congratulations as far as I know you the first person I've
talked to from Old River. Good morning. Yes, that was out in the yard yesterday and I noticed some sawdust coming from one of my pine trees. Okay, and I'm suspicious that it might be pine bark beetles. Yes, if it's up sawdust, it probably can do for that. Uh. Do you see where it's coming out? Yes? Is there a globa sap there? It's just around the bottom of the tree. Not too bad yet, Okay, it's worse my experience if it if the if the beetle entry,
there's usually a glob of sap where they go in. Isn't as like from eight foot down? That is that the black turpentine beetle. Uh? And then there's there's like five different kinds of bark beetles we deal with here in Texas on pine trees. Okay. Usually when it's drought, why they can get in. And then if it's moist, why the pine sap will keep them out. The pine tries to, but when the pine is weak, the beetles take over. You can almost guarantee when you have like a
lightning strike on a pine, beetles follow in that stressed damaged tree. Drought can effect. Anything I can apply to the bottom of the tree is let the roots take it up into the tree. Now, there's not a systemic that works on that. In the old days, we took and sprayed a very strong, persistent insecticide on the trunk and into the crevices, and then when the beetle tried to go in, it had to chew through that insecticide.
Those products are very damaging to your eyes, for example, and when you're trying to get you'd like to be able to cover eighty percent of the tree trunk height when you spray, Well, how do you spray up like that and not get stuff drifting down in your eyes and stuff? It just impractical to do. It is possible to do, but I would say I generally I just wouldn't recommend it because of the safety and practically. All right, well, thank you very much, you bet. I hope that tree
turns out okay. If it's a turpentine that tends to not be as bad, and that would also be one that be more practical. You stand back and spray the trunk, you know, from let's just say ten foot down and you'd be all right. Appreciate your time. All right, Patrick, thank you appreciate the call very much. Are you looking for a product that is organic but that has a lot of nitrogen in it? That would be sweet Green. Sweet Green is by Nitroposs and it is it is like eleven
percent nitrogen fertilizer. It's very high in that it's biologically the molasses has been biologically affected. The microbes turn molasses into sweet green in a sense if you want to look at it that way. It releases in water. It is very good for the soil, very good for microbes. Microbes love sugar. That's why people put molasses on the soil to increase microbe activity and population. Sweet greens smells wonderful. The name, it's a good name. It smells
sweet because it comes from molasses. Really easy, easy to do. Hey, where do you get it? Woodlands? All small hardware has got it in the Woodlands if you were, you know on two very nine plants for all seasons, carries Nitrofoss Sweet Green. I was in there just the other day. It's also night Fross sweagering out in Brenham. When you're on your way up to antique crows and bo plants and things. Carrie Nitrofuss sweet Green. So it's easy to find night Foss products round town. Those are just
a few of the places that you can find it. I have a bag of it I'm gonna put out this year. I always, you know, here's one thing about Guardline that I want you to know. I talk about products that I've used or that I've seen research on, some way that I feel confident this stuff works. And always when you hear me talk about something, either I've seen research on it, I've talked to people, I've seen the work that they do, I've used the product, I see how it
works. So that's how this works here, don't There's some types of advertisers that would like to advertise and we don't take We're just not going to do that. I'm not going to recommend something that I personally am not willing to put my name on that I believe in. And so you can just know that I hope you already do. But you can know that Wilbirds Unlimited is wanting you to know right now that the hummingbirds are here. They are arriving.
Early March is the time when the hummingbirds in their migration are starting back through you need to get the hummingbird houses out. There are feeders out there. They have the products you need that have beautiful hummingbird feeders. By the way, they have the material that you can put in the feeder to feed the hummingbirds, or you can make your own. They'll give you the right
recipe to do it. But listen, when you put stuff in a hummingbird feeder in our hot Texas weather, you got to change it out every couple of days because you don't want it to ferment. You don't want mold to grow. If you've had a feeder, you've probably seen a little black mold around where the hummingbirds are feeding. Clean it out, Clean it out. You don't want to give diseases to those birds. Now. Wibirds Unlimited as six stores all over all over the place. Easy to find them wbu dot
com. Also, don't forget bluebirds are looking for nests Purple Martins. Back in February, they began returning looking for a place to stay, and you put their house up. They find it. They go tell their friends it's a sweet gig you got going there. Whether they say sweet digs or whatever. They'll come and set off shop at your house wildbirds fixes you up on all that bird seed and mainly important accurate knowledge to help you have success,
because that's why we do that. I love having birds out in the yard and in the landscape. That is one of my favorite things that I do is take care of the wildbirds. Fun. Hey, I'm happy to announce Grime County. Grimes County Feed is back for those of you up there in the Navisota area. Grimes County Feed is raring to go. I mean it is spring and they are stocked up and ready to go. They carry the
fertilizer products that you hear me talk about here on guard Line. By the way, I just want to again congratulate the folks at Grimes County On last year they did their fifth year anniversary. And you know, I love going in there, love visiting with Chris and the whole gang there at Grimes County Feed. If you'd like to give them a call, it's two eight one eight one four twenty four ninety four eight one four twenty four ninety four.
The roy family has been in that community for number of years. All of you out there in all the little communities of beat Eyes and Richards and Anderson and Shiro and Rodes Prairie and even College Station they're just a hop skipping or jump out Highway thirty outside of College Station as well. Well, I'm going to turn the magic microphone over to the magical I'm sorry, I humoring myself. I can't even finish the magical Nikki to give us the info on the
news that we can't live without. Well, let's make your gardening dreams come true today. And how do we do that? Well, we start with the brown stuff. We get the soil right. We go to a quality garden center knows what they're talking about, and we get the right plants to plant in our area. We get the instruction on how to do it right, and then we take care of them. We build the soil. Part of the brown stuff is fertilizing. Mixing nutrients in the soil is a bank
account. Every moment of every day, that plant is taking up water and nutrients, and it needs the bank account to have everything. It needs nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, manganese, zinc, iron, boron. Do you hear what I'm saying? Everything? There's like twenty roughly about twenty nutrients that the plant is going to need to take up and they got to be in the bank account. That's part of taking care
of the brown stuff so your plants can thrive. That's the whole idea that makes your dreams come true. It really really does. Listen. When you buy a pack of seed or a plant, you are investing in hope. You are investing in future beauty and bounty. That's what you're doing. Will you buy a tomato plant? Don't you just see the tomato? Can't you just taste it? When you buy that plant and you're bringing it home, you already know it's gonna be good. You're gonna have slices on the burgers,
You're gonna have cherries to throw in a salad. You're gonna make sauce with the paste type for me. You already know what you want to do with it. We want you, We want that dream to be reality. And that's why we give advice here on Guarden Line. You can give us a call ite seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven three two fifty eight seventy four and we will be happy to visit with you. Talk about the clownd of questions. You have help in whatever way we can.
For those of you down south and east, and actually for those of you anywhere listening to my voice, if you've not been to Moss Nursery, you need to go. It is a wonderland to walk through, to stroll through. I mean it's just acres of every turn around, every corner. Who knows what you're going to see? Plants, containers, cool unusual artifacts that they have gathered from around the world and brought back to display there. It is just a fun place to go to right now. They have got
all kinds of containers available. They've got plants and all kinds of container sizes. Do you need stuff for your patio? Do you want to see a hanging basket on that back porch area where you at wherever you have a hanging basket, they've got that. They have common varieties, they have exotic varieties, and they're your greenhouse is loaded. I mean there's stuff on the tables, on the shelves, on the ground. They even hang them from the
rafters in there. Listen. If you are into succulents, which a lot of people are, you're not gonna find a better selection. Then they've got it. Moss Nursery. If you're into all kinds of tropical sprind doors, it is amazing what they have there. But it's not just that it is bedding plants for color. It is fruiting plants, it is vegetable plants.
Everything you can imagine and the products to go with it that I talk about on Guardline at Moss Nursery Moss Nursery maas nursery dot com, or you can give them a call two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight, and you need to go check it out if you haven't been. It is really really worth the drive for wherever you're coming from. Those of you who live southeast, you already know it's in your backyard. You're listening to Guardline.
Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. So what do you want to talk about today? You know, the elephant in the room this time of the year is your lawn. Taking care of your lawn, making sure it looks good. Last summer was brutal. Lawns are thin. I'm having to replace some sections of lawns from when I was away last summer. Water didn't come on for whatever reason. Chinch bugs invaded, take all root
rod invaded. It was like they wanted to mock me. It's like this guy's on the radio talking about knowing what he's talking about, and we're just gonna kill all the lawn in his house. Ah boy, I never had those problems before, but I did last year. So let's just say I can feel your pain. So what do you gotta do. You gotta get out there and take care of it now. If you go to my gardening schedule for lawn care, this is online at gardening with Skip dot com.
It's the lawn care schedule. By the way, there's also a lawn pest disease and weed management schedule. Both are free. They last January through February. What do you do? Okay, January through febru What do you do? And then what products will do that? It's across the bottom. You got synthetics, you got organics, it's all all the options are there on the schedule. You need to print it out and take it with you. What you're gonna find on the schedule is Nitro Fross Imperial, the fifteen five
ten, the red bag, Red Bag Nitrofoss Imperial. It will give you a fast green up. The fifteen five ten is based on research done at Texas A and M a long time ago and now any extension service across the South, any urf researcher across the South will tell you three one two fertilizer is the best blend for your lawn. And that's why Nitrofoss formulated fifteen five ten for just that. Now, where do you get Nitrofos products. Well, I don't care where you live. You can find them locally. They're
available everywhere. For example, you can find nitropas at Katie Hardware. Ace Yeah, out there and Katie you can find it at Ace Hardware in Memorial on Memorial Drive. You can find Nitrofoss products at Stanton Shopping Center out there down in Alvin, for example. Widely available. Look for fifteen top five to ten for the early green up. And now's the time do it. Now, you know for too long we're gonna be putting on summer fertilizations.
Early green up Nitrofoss fifteen five ten, simple as that. Let's go out. See we're gonna go. I'm gonna go to Richmond, Texas. We're gonna talk to Tom. Hello, Tom, Hey, good morning. How you doing. I'm good. I'm pretty fast saying. I am a landscaper, been in the business, family business for fifty years. I have a brutal time explain my customers the difference between over and underwatering and watching them kill their container trees. Okay, so to the end of the season and I
was wondering if there were any just general kids. I'm always trying to find new tips on how to explain the difference and the severe damage from overwatering and how quickly it could destroy a tree because people kind of think, come, I'm gonna sprinkle. Oh I uh, you know, I went to vacation, came back on just dump tumbel or water at the point. Yeah, I know. But spotting the difference is the key. And it's even hard, you know, in what I do to tell them the exact answer.
There's no science to it, youtil the soil conditions surrounding it. But it's something that with these extreme heats, especially like last year and a few years ago where we were one hundred and five hundred and ten for forty days straight, people just were killing things left and right after they paid for these things. And I think, you know, since it's spring now, when people are going out and buying stuff, I think that is probably the most important
thing. Is you know, how long do I have to water for and how do I recognize and just just wasting money? Yeah, I agree, I agree, it's it's commonly, it's a common problem. You know, with a new tree, the roots are all still in that little cylinder for a good while after you put in the ground. It takes time to get
an established root system. Takes several years really, as a tree is doing that, and so targeting the water different in a new tree, and then as a tree becomes more established, or watering a larger area and not having the water as much. You know, trees are so resilient. And yeah, we do overwater. We kill more house plants with overwatering than underwatering. And it just I tell people, roots have have to have oxygen, and if you make the soil soggy, they can't breathe. It's like me shoving
you underwater and saying good luck breathing. You know you're not going to do it. And for some people it sinks. In for some it doesn't, I'll tell them put out a tuna fish can or a cat food can and water until you fill it up and then stop and that's enough. Or I'll tell them go out and dig around the tree, dig down about four inches and feel the soil. For some people that seems to work is yeah, this soil is still wet. I don't need to I don't need to water.
But you're right about the problem. Do you have a general rule of thumb that you tell people based on the size of the container? You know, the fifteen gallon thirty yl and you know x amount of water and all. It's pretty different. Yeah. Yeah, it's something per day, per week, you know something ill. I have a little schedule that I have
out there. I need to put it online. But it's based on some research done by one of the best trees specialists in the country in Florida, and they have clay sails and they have sandy soils and things that we deal with here. But it's establishing trees. Basically, you're looking at how big was the pot fills a gallum pot or fills a ten gallum pot, whether then it gets a gallon of water or ten gallons of water when you water
and you're water in the base and on an early tree. This time of year, you don't need water much, but you do need to keep it moist once we get hot. We're probably watering twice a day during that or twice a week during that first year, with a good, good amount. And I've talked about doing drip irrigation. I talked about doing a burm. Hey, I've run into a hard break here. I'm gonna have to go, Tom, But thanks for bringing that up. I'll make some more comments
when we come back. Phone number is seven to one, three two, one to five eight seven four. Hey, welcome back to guard Line. Thanks for joining us today. We got a lot to talk about today. First of all, I wanted to say congratulations to Beverly and the folks at Arburgate Nursery. This is a twenty eighth year anniversary. Can you believe that? When I think back, that makes there's no way it could have been around twenty It was just the other day, right, Well, that's how
life goes, right. Congratulations on having a absolute showplace. Those folks have put together a place that it is just a pleasure to walk through. Just one scene unfolds into the next You go through the vegetables and the herbs and the flowers, and the groundcovers the whole section for shade loving plants, and you wander into the gift shops, and you wander into the house plant shop.
You get back in the back where they're the shrubs and things, and oh, by the way, the best thing, the newest best thing at Arburgate Nursery is the parking lot in the back. It is outside Trischel Road leaves twenty nine twenty. As you are coming either way west or east into the Arborgate, Trisher Road will take off to the south and it will come
back in again after the Arborgate, So either way you're coming. If you miss it on the way in and it's like ooh, there's Arbigate, I miss Traischel Road, just travel a little further and you can catch it and swing around to the back. It is weather proof parking, a wonderful little internally drained parking area, not just concrete and n asphalt. It's really cool and you go in there. You go in the back and you just begin your shopping from that end, or walk all the way to the front if
you want. But it is the best new thing that they've done. And boy, they've done a lot of good things. Congratulations since Beverley and all of you out at the Arbigate for doing that. They are stocked up now on camellias. Camellia is a wonderful plant for blooming during December January. Depends on what kind of community you buy, and it does really well. And their selection, their selection of saucer magnolias is unbelievable. You need to go
now and see them because they're blooming right now. It's one of the first bloomers we have in the spring is a saucer magnolia. And if you don't have one in your yard, you are missing out. And the folks at Arburgate will get you set up. And that for those of you who have been living under a rock or just moved here and don't know where Arburgate is, it's on twenty nine twenty. It is just a little bit west of Tombull on twenty nine to twenty. It's easy to find, easy to get
there, and remember take advantage of that parking lot. Here's the website arburg Gate dot com Arburgate dot com. When you go out there, your jaw's going to drop when you see all the stuff that they have right now. Really cool. Let's head out to Full Sure. Now we're going to talk to Ann. Hello, Anne, Good mornings. Get morning. I'm trying. Good morning. I'm trying to help a friend who used a national yard care service for the last few years and it has just ruined his yard.
Okay, he has a bermuda yard. I have never had a bermuda yard right now. His yard has a lot of weeds in it. Okay, the soil looks compacted to me, and there's very little green bermuda growing. Where can I start to help him? Okay? Full Sure Texas Well, I tell you when you are when you're dealing with bermuda the keys. Of course, it needs moisture. It's drought tolerant. But if you want it to look good, you got to water it or it has to rain.
That's one thing. Secondly, it needs nitrogen and small amounts regularly over time. The best look in green bermuda that has density which fights the weeds for you, is a lawn that's been fertilized regularly. And then the more often you mow, the better, and the lower you mow the denture it a look. Now, you can have a Bermuda lawn that's two and a half inches high, that's fine, but generally when you get down in the one and a half to two inch range, you're gonna have the best looking Bermuda
from that. So mow water, fertilized. My lawn care schedule at gardening with Skip dot Com goes into all of that mow water and fertilized. It tells you what products do you use, when to apply them, and that's the that's the secret to getting bermuda looking good. There's not a better looking turf for our area than bermuda when it's properly cared for. I mean, think of a golf course green. Who's who has seen anything as beautiful and dense as that? To start for a first feeding? Since it does have
so many weeds? Should I use we donator? Should I put down barricade? But he already has weeds and a fertilizer? What would you recommize if the lawn is then I would do barricade right now, immediately, right now,
especially out there in fullshure. You're a little south and so you're gonna you're gonna have weeds that are trying to germinate here, So get it down, watered in with a half inch of irrigation after you apply it, because that moves it to the soil where it can do the work that it's going to do. Uh. And then it is also time for the spring green up. So you know, nitrophoss makes the barricade. Uh the I'm sorry,
did you say barricade or weedinator? I mised you. Yeah, I was wondering should I use the wheedonator so I would have the fertilizer and the okay together, my brain went sideways on that. I'm sorry. Barricade is the pre emergent, and you would you should use that. The weed nator will kill the weeds that are growing by soaking into the leaves of the weeds. So you have to wet on that one first. You turn on the water just enough to wet the surface of the grass plants and the weed plants.
Then put the weedinator out and the granules stick better to the leaves of the weed. Give it about a day or two to really soak in, and then water and that would move everything to the soil surface. But the barricade, it would move the the night. The Weedonator's granules of fertilizer to the sole surface. Weedenator is going to feed for at least two months, even longer probably, but it'll feed for a long time and that'll get you
set up to go, Okay, touch it, thank you. That's different than the spring green up with Nitrofoss's red bag the fifteen five to ten that gives you the immediate right now. But what you're doing is you're juggling all these I want to prevent weeds. I want to kill weeds. I want to make the grass grow. And so you know you have a product range to help you out with that. Okay, perfect, thank you, all right, thank you very much. So three sixty Tree Stabilizers a new product
on the market. It grabs onto a post, it grabs onto the tree, and it holds it. No messy guy wires to trip over. All those days are gone. The thing I like best about the three sixty tree Stabilizer, in addition to it being a very strong, sturdy product, is that it has a soft strap that holds the tree but allows it to move. Movement is important to develop trunk strength. You don't want to honker a tree down where it can't budge. You wanted to wiggle a little bit,
move a little bit in the wind. That creates strength. Where do you get a three sixty tree stabilizer? You get them at Jorges Hidden Gardens down south. You get them at Southwest Fertilizer, which is Southwest. Misn't it and Runwick Go up two ninety and go up Tomball Parkway, RCW Nursery, Buchanan's Native Plants in Central Town, Arbor Gate up in Tomball Plants for all seasons up going up to forty nine. Easy to find them, Easy to
find the tree three sixty tree stabilizer. Just saw some at Southwest Fertilizer yesterday. A very very good product that works really well. Now, earlier on I was talking to you about the Microlife hummates. Microlife humits is an organic fertilizer that is basically concentrated compost in a bag. Now, it's not in place of fertilizing because it has a zero zero four numbers on the bag. You're putting it down because of the humates. Humates are the final decomposition stage
of compost. And so when you look at a bag of microlife humates plus It took a ton of compost to make that little bag of Microlife Humates Plus, so you're getting the benefit of the full process. You put it out there. It gets on the soil, it improves the soul structure, It improves internal drainage. Therefore it improves rooting depth. It improves water infiltration, so the water you do have doesn't just run off, it gets into the
bank account for the plants. Microlife Humates Plus. Wherever you find Microlife microlifefertilizer dot com, that'll tell you. Go there microlifefertilizer dot Com. You learn about all of their products, and you'll also learn at microlifefertilizer dot Com where you can find the things and pretty much if I'm talking about a place, they carry Microlife because it did very widely available. Well, we put another
hour in the books. I want to remind you that I am going to leave after the show today and head straight to Conrod, Texas to the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. I'll be there giving a talk at twelve o'clock, twelve to one probably about that time, and I'll be around for your questions. Bring me samples, bring me pictures, let's talk about it.
This is your opportunity for one on one, eye to eye with me to talk about whatever you're interested in regarding making your landscape and your garden more beautiful and more bountiful. I'm going to be giving away jars of Nelson fertilizer products, for example, the new Genesis product that you mix in with the media or the soil where you're going to be transplanting. I'll have that. I have a lot of other Nelson products, probably enough for everybody, but
we'll give them away until they're all gone. I got plenty of I'm bringing with me. Remember you go out to the Lone Star Convention Center. It's kind of northeast side of Conra. We'll be right back. Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H. Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy Trim. Just watch him as so many teas to seep out. Jazy gas taking not a sign. Welcome to garden Line. Glad to have
you listening today. Listen, this is a banner weekend to get gardening done. There is so much it needs to happen in your yard and in your garden. If you're going to put on a pre emergent, you gotta get it done now because the weeds are starting their germination and we got to get ahead of those. You want to get ahead of those, it's time to do that. If you are going to fertilize with a spring green up, now is the time to put that down. That's not going to make the
lawn just take off and grow real fast. It's going to turn it green. That's why we call it green up. As the weather warms, the grass begins to grow more and that nutrient that you put down's going to be available to the plant to help with that early growth. That is why we do it. At this time of the year. It's time to build the soil and your landscapes, your vegetable gardens, flower beds, if you're going to put in an herb garden, it's time for everything. Time to get
a good container and get some color out there. We're done with winter. I'm officially saying spring is here. The weather could prove me wrong, but I don't think so. I think I'm right on this one. I look weather ten days out, nothing close to a frost. So hey, let's do it. It's spring. Let's party. Robin Williams used to say that spring is Nate's way of saying, let's party. And that is right.
It is time to get out there and then party. So if you're going to do an early early application, maybe you want to do the barricade. You want to get that down and water it in well. Or you want to put your Nitrofoss Imperial fifteen five to ten down to get that early green up. Now's the time to do it. And these products work well. Remember here, if you're going to do both, here's what I would recommend. Put out either one first, the barricade or the Knight Foss Imperial.
Then come back, fill up your fertilizer spreader, don't mix them together, and go back over the lawn with the other one. Put them both down, and then apply one half inch of water. Just turn on your sprinklers enough. Put a little rain gage, straight sided container like a tunic can, coffee, tuna, fish can, catfood can, those kind of things, and when you caught about a half inch, that's enough and it washes them all down to the soul surface and they go to work and they get
to business and you're going to find these products. All nitrofoss products, a wide variety and a lot a lot of different places. For example, Shades of Texas up in the Woodlands is going to carry these products. You can find them at Fisher's Hardware, both the one in Southeastern on Southomore and the one on Broadway Street in Laporte. Both of those places are going to carry these products. You're going to find them at the Arbor Gate. Go up
to the Arbor Gate and Tomball Texas and you'll find these nitrofos products. Easy, easy to find them. Let's head out now to a Corpus Christy and we are going to talk to Jim. Good morning, sir. How are you. I'm well, sir, how are you? I'm doing good except for all the weeds in my yard. Okay, So I've lived in this house like three and a half years now, and the grass has always been pretty good, not a lot of weeds. But over the winter, it's
just it's crazy how much weeds I have right now. I know, I know it's because the long got thin and wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants weed gym. You're in Corpus Christie down the coast right, yes, okay, so the weeds that are there need to be killed with a post emergent weed killer, and they're probably already down that far south. They're probably
already going to seed and blooming. Is that what you're finding. Yeah, you can try using a post emergent product on them once the weeds start to set seed. It's a little late to gain much from that, but you can. You could. Still, it's worth a try. But I would I would get the mower out and I would start with a bagger on it, getting as much of those weed seeds and stuff out as you can.
That's your best effort right there. So if you want to use a product as that would fertilize and kill those weeds, yet to wet the lawn and then Nelson Plant Food makes a product called weed Nator and it has a slow lease fertilizers can feed your lawn for another two or three months. But it also has the exist but you have to have a wet weed leaf for that granule to stick to. So that would be the approach I would take. After you've put it on, give it a day or two and then watered
in to get the fertilizer down. Then when you mow, I would still I would give it probably about a week before I mow, after you apply it, because you want it to move down into the weed so that it can prevent it from re sprouting. So well, after you mow, mow, and you've already got your fertilizer down and you've done the first best step right there. That's good. Yeah, and that was my next question is
should I mow it before I put this stuff on or after? Definitely definitely after every drop of every square inch of weed surface you can leave on there before you apply the product is better because it's more places granule to land. All right, that sounds good, all right, sir, I really appreciate it. Enjoy your show. Thank you, sir. Hey, let me ask you a question, Jim, are you listening on radio or are you listening via computer app? On the radio? Right? I listened to Randy
for years, and then I remember the first day you started. And uh, I don't get to listen as much on Saturdays as I used to, but every chance I get, I love I love the show. Thank you. It's very helpful, all right. Yeah, it's really good and all right. Well, I'm getting my feet underneath me, so it's a little better than the first day. But thanks Jim, I appreciate that. Thanks for being a listener. You take care. Yeah, that's that's how it
goes, isn't it. If you are interested in roses, if you're interested in trees and shrubs, now's the time to get them planted. Every day we give ornamental plant, tree or shrub or woody vine. Between now and the heat of summer is helpful because it's getting a truth's established. You can plan in August if you want to, or July, but that's a touch and go time. Let's make it easier on ourselves and plant now. Rcw's got you covered on all that. It's got you covered on the roses.
Oh my gosh. Their selection of roses is a mile long. I mean every kind of hybrid d even old rose, and they got them all right there at RCW. When you go to RCW, though, I want you to tell them show me your hibiscus. Show me show me the hibiscus that you have. It is incredible. They carry a series called Cajun Hibiscus. I cannot describe the picture. Go to their website. RCW nurseres dot com. Find out how to get there. They are where two forty nine comes
into beout Way eight. Easy to find them. You gotta go. You got to see the Cajun hibiscus. I got some last year. It's just I don't know a plan that is that amazing and beautiful and gaudy and everything under the sun as those cage and hibiscuits that they have. By the way, of course, they have out the color plants, and they got shrubs and trees, and they have vegetables and all kinds of things like that at RCW Nurseries. It's always a good day to visit over at RCW. Let's
take a little break here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. When I come back, Ray and Dane, you'll be the first two up. Welcome back to the garden line. Good to have you with us today. We are talking about all the things you need to know about gardening. Hey, if you are going to put out some containers of color, both in the house or outside the house, really containers jungle Land jungle Land product distributing nitrophospholks. It is a quality soil for
your outdoor plants. It's the outdoor version is called flower and vegetable planting soil. The indoor version is called water saving potting soil. They're both jungle land jungle and water saving potting soil. It's got the crystal that hold extra water. And those crystals then as your soul gets dry, the roots go up against the crystal and they are able to draw water, draw moisture from those
water saving crystals. It makes it a little more forgiving. Now, I know you don't forget the water, but your neighbor does, and so tell them because they'll need this for sure. Yeah, I know you do too, so do I sometimes. But jungle land products by Nitrofoss superquality, you're gonna have excellent color outdoors just because they're designed for that. They've got various types of aged organic matter. They got micro hizel fungi, Canadian blomb peat
all together in those products. And where do you get nitrofoss products? So I've been telling you all day to day. They're available everywhere. You can get nitrophus anywhere you go. A task Asida Ace hardware is a place you can get nitropus ace hardware. Sinkle Ranch is a place that you can get nitropas Lake Go down Lake Jackson. How about Lake Hardware and Clute Yep, they've got it as well. Easy to find nitro foss product like these anywhere
you go. Let's head out to Missouri City and we're going to talk to Ray. Hello. Ray, Hey, Skip, thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir, you may have answered my question with the gentleman from Corpus Christy, but my question was what weed killer do you recommend that will kill the weeds but not the grass and does not contain Glyco's sake. Well, no weed killer for your lawn should contain glaph of sake. That is a It kills everything. So none of them are going to carry that for
the lawn. Uh. You you've you've got some options if you've got to do you have existing weeds you're killing or are you trying to prevent weeds that might be coming law? I have existing weeds. Unlike the guy from Corpus, I had a nice lawn, but it's just full of weeds. Yeah, you can. You can use a product. H Nelson Plant Food makes one called weed nat Weed and it has fertilizer and it has the post emergent
weed killer in it. You got to get the weeds wet, the granule sticks to the weed leaf, give it a day or two and then water it in to get the fertilizer down on the ground. And that particular fertilizer is going to last you for a long time. Now if you're if you're just looking for a green up, a fast, immediately available fertilizer, then the folks at nitroposs make one of those that contains a post emergent weed killer as well. It's in a blue bag, and that again got to get
the weeds wet, got to get the granules on the weeds. But that one is going to give you a fast, early greenup, whereas the Nelson product is going to give you several months of feeding going out from that, and both of them work very well. So with the weed Nata, do you mow first and then you wet the lawn. No, anytime you're killing a weed that exists, you want as much weed leaf area out there as you can because you're dropped been that granule and you wanted to stick to the
wet weed leaf. So if you chop off a bunch of the weeds with a mower. You don't have leaves for the granules to stick to, So don't mow first, Wet it, then apply it, wait a day or two, and then you can water and mow and do whatever you want. I'd water first and then I'd mow later. Okay, The Southwest carry this product? Oh yeah, yeah, Southwest carries every product absolutely, Yeah, Bob Scott, South Southwestern, Well, you're you're fortunate. Are You're fortunate
there? Southwest carries nitrofoss, they carry microlfe, they carry Nelson products, they carry Medina products, they have it all. Yeah. I was in yesterday. I took a video. I was going to put that on our Facebook page. I just walked through the store and show you what all they have. It is just like people walk in there and they can't believe that there's a place that has that much stuff. You're fortunate to live close, right. Okay, So all products are going to contain the glyco see no
product. Labels for spraying on a lawn contains glyphissay, Yeah, no product because glyphis kills green things, and so you would never spray it on a green thing unless it's a weed you're trying to kill. Is this product sprayed on or is it granule? The weed Nator is a granule, just like the product that I mentioned from Nitrophoss is a granule. The blue bag for
nitrate is also a granule. And that's why you have to wet the weeds first, just to wet the surface and then immediately head across the lawn with that spreader put the granules out. Okay, that will help a lot. I appreciate it. Good luck with that. Thank you for the call,
Thank you you bet yes. Southwest Fertilizer, My gosh. I was in the just yesterday visiting with Bob. Bought some stuff and we're talking about some new products and some new strategies for dealing with some old problems and things. And I just took a video of the whole store I walked through. I'm gonna post that to Facebook. See you can see it. If it'll let me post a video that long. I was trying to make a short one,
but you can't take a short video of Southwest Fertilizer. I can pay you four short videos to try to include all the different things that they carry there. They're on the corner of Businet and Runwick. For those of you who don't live like Ray right next door to the businet and Runwick Southwest Houston Southwest for leisure dot Com. Those of you who are hearing that, going, hey, I want to know about that place. That's it. Let's head up now to beat Iyes, Texas and talk to Dane. Hello,
Dane, I'm well sir. How are things up in beat Eyes? I bet it is? You're in God's country up there. That is so beautiful out through that region likes. Yes, you got a little topography where a lot of places you don't have that. That's right. Yeah. When you come down to Houston, you the only the only way you can get up and down is to go in an overpass over the highway. That's That's the
biggest mountain in town is the overpasses. I know it well. I grew up in friends with there you go, how can I help you to do? Man? Skip. I'm building an above a race garden and I'm building it out of center blocks. I'm going to build it about three blocks high. And I was pricing road soil, yes, by the ball, yes,
and it ain't it ain't the cheapest flag in the world. No, And I was wondering is there something I could fill the bottom of that raise bed up with to produce some of the cost and it So what would you recognize? Yeah, Well, the reason that any kind of a quality product has a price is it it's a blend of a lot of different good things and you're getting it all combined into one product. And you could use just
compost. You could use some compost. I would I think if I were doing that, I would probably kind of mark out where roughly where the beds are. You can use a spray paint on the ground if you want to do that before you put the cinder block down, and I would throw the compost down about three inches thick, and I would rot a till or spade it into the where the beds are going to be. Then you set your cinder blocks down, and then you fill those up with another kind of mix.
You can add some more compost inside. But creating a transition from the quality saw mix to whatever is in your property right now, that little blending I mentioned initially kind of helps you just don't go It's not like you're putting quality soil right down on concrete or asphalt or a poor quality soil. Yeah. Certain, Well, I can tell you the dark quality of good. Yeah. Yeah, Well, all you need really is if you can even get it up eight inches. Now, those cinder blocks are eight inches high.
I would mound them a lit lot with soil. I wouldn't just put it flat because they will sink down in the weeks and months to come. Uh So start with a little bit of a mound. All right, And here's what I go ahead there, which you'll always recommend for no roasmix is fine rose mix or you know the let's see beat eyes. I'm trying to think of who's close to you. The problem with getting organic material to you is the distance. It costs as much to drive it as it costs for
the stuff when you've got to go a long, long distance. So uh yeah, you might. There is a soil yard that I think has the heirloom products, or they will soon in South College station up there where you can get heirloom type products. But they have a the uh site one is the name of it. Uh And you might find that a little closer. In fact, I think you would to beat yes or won't have trailer move travel, have trailer will trouble there, you go then just run down to
porter and grab you some stuff, be done with it. They're closed, I tell you what. It's also pretty close to you. But but Nature's Way is right there on Interstate forty five, just south of Conro. So if you got the trailer, you can run down and get it bulk right there too. You might talk to them. Oh yeah, they got every Nature's Way has everything. They originated a bunch a bunch of those kinds of things. I man, I've been going out to Nature's Way for a long
long time. They've been around a long time. Let me give you a phone number. Let me give you phone number eight. Yeah. Uh, give them a call at nine three six two seven three twelve hundred nine three six two seven three twelve hundred and talk to him, talk to John or talk to Ian and say, look, here's the deal. I got to fill up some beds, but I just don't want to spend all the money's gonna take to go all the way. Like, what would you suggest?
And they're going to have a suggestion to save you some money, but that will also make you a good bed. I would just talk to them. Oh good, all right, appreciation hey, and you're fortunate, man, You just live down the street from Grimes County feed. Yeah, they got they got good man. They need to start having deliveries of molts there where you can go pick it up. I bet they don't want to hear that. They got their hands full with all the different stuff they carry already.
No, and then they got that place in Montgomery, an A. They just don't carry the ball. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's a good place though, good good place is very nice. All right, sir, Hey, thank you, thank you. You take care of there. And beat Eyes, Texas. Uh have you ever been done to Jorge hid and Gardens. That's one of our newert sponsors here on garden Line. And Jorge is he just keeps growing the place. You know, he's
got vision on where he wants that place to go. And when you go there, this is, you know, just a nursery cares a little everything. You're gonna you're gonna have your vegetable plant, your herb plants. You're gonna really good selection of fruit trees. You know, people haven't cleaned them out yet. I mean they had avocado, they had blackberries, blueberry,
strawberries, raspberries, elderberries, mulberries. I saw peaches a while back there, and plums and apples and pears, and they had all of that. And again people that are finding out about it are starting to go there and find some really quality stuff. Earlier, I was telling you about that three sixty tree stabilizer. Orce got it down at Horages Gardens. They're on Elizabeth
Street in Alvin. That's south of Highway six. So if you live in Alvin or Santa Fe or Dickinson or Hillcrest, or I'll go or Arcadia or what's the other Alta Loma down in that area. Horayes your backyard nursery and garden center. You need to go by and check them out and see the kinds of stuff they have. And again it's always changing. They're growing, They're just continuing to add more and more cool stuff at Hoorges Gardens down down
south, well, let's see here. I want to remind you that I'm going to be at the Home and Garden show up in Conro It's the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. I will be there on this afternoon from twelve to two. I'll be given a talk for an hour and then I'll be answering your questions, and I'm going to be given away a truckload of various kinds of products from Nelson's like their new Genesis and a lot of you
have little fertilizer canisters that Nelson's has. So here's a chance to get some free product and hopefully it will some free and good information. You know that garden show is free. It doesn't cost anything to get in, free parking, free admission. You're not going to talk them down on that price. Here's NICKI welcome back to guard Line. Hey, we're glad to have you with us today. Listen, I'm talking about Jorges Hidden Gardens being down south.
Another place that is outstanding that is down south Houston is Ciena malt Ciena Maltz has quality soul mixes. Cienamultchs. Quality mixes include composts, they include bed mixes. They've got mulches, They've got stone, all kinds of landscape stones, flat stones and rocks and things like that. They carry every fertilizer I'm talking about on guard Line. They carry those there. Ciena Maltch is the place where you go to get the brown stuff right before you put in
the green stuff. That's what that's exactly what I'm talking about. Super super high quality stuff that works. You can go to Siennamultz dot com, CNA Moltch dot com, or you can just go buy there FM five point twenty one. They're near Highway six and to eighty eight, just north of Rose Sharon Ciena Mulch. In fact, Ciena Mulch's products or what BnB Turf Pros
used when I was talking earlier about accompost top dressing. For those of you down south, BnB Turf is our southern supplier of compost top dressing and aeration, and they use they know Siena works. They use Cienamal's the top quality products. I want to head to Brenham, Texas now and talk to Leonard. Hello Leonard, good morning. This this is the Old Rooster and Brenham. And I've got a problem with grass and weeds, especially the weeds.
I have pastures around me. I wondered if the pastures and the cows and everything is help is keeping my yard which is fenced around my house? And uh, it just constantly with the weeds and the and the bad summer that we had killed everything. I'm past eighty. I don't have the energy or the money to spend on a carpet of grass or even the six fertilizer that
kills the weeds. So I was wondering if I can just take like we did when we were kids, dig a little holeless maybe three inches wide, and h and our four inches wide and two inches deep, cut the Saint Augustine and pieces that will match that hole, and just put it in there and stamp some fresh soil around it and watered in and keep watering it. Yes, and it'll eventually take over the weeds. Yes, I think if
I were doing that, I'd to mend it one way. Uh. So you have a lawn area and that's weed, not weedy, and then you have lawns that have weeds in it. Right, is that what you're saying? Well, everything now has got weeds in because it's spread into my lawn. Well, I was wondering if those pastures are what's blowing the weed seeds in there or something well, who knows, who knows? I mean it could be coming from a lot of places. But you know, to get
rid of weeds, there's only two approaches. One is to do the mow, water fertilized and get your lawns so dense that it shows the weeds. The second is to spray them with something, And you're kind of saying you don't want to do the second one, so uh, at least get a good quality fertilizer and keep that lawn as healthy as you can when we get into summer drought. Or do you have the ability to get watered all those places or not? Yes, okay if you can, but yes, if
you can keep the grass healthy. Doesn't have to be watered every day. Once a week's enough, probably maybe twice a week and the worst of conditions. But uh, if you can at least get a once a week good soaking of water on it and then fertilize it. And you can use immediately release products and use them small doses over time. You can buy a slow release and let it do the small doses over time itself. But mow, water, fertilized. Those three things are the secret to getting rid of the
vast majority of your weeds. There are a few that will live despite you doing everything right, But those plugs will eventually over if you take care of them, if you help them water in And I would start doing it right now and then continue to do it because once we get into July, you can still put plugs in, but then you got to go water that spot regularly and it's going to take about a week of daily water on that plug to get it soaked in so that you know what I'm saying, We've got
clay soil here and it isn't bear. Yeah, Now that are to help the oak trees that I'm real concerned about, also a good soaking. Generally when we water our grass though, we don't water the soil deep enough to really provide the volume of water and oak would need if it's oh yeah, oh yeah, those trees absolutely. Hey, you've answered my question again. So I thank you very much. All right, you take care of Thanks
Leonard. I appreciate appreciate that call a lot. Yeah, you know, we run into a lot of different kinds of questions on guarden Line and a lot of different roaches people take. You know, some people it's like, hey, I'll do whatever it takes, you know, line up the products, line up the services. We're going to get it all done. We're going to do that. And other people it's like, no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be able to do all that. I just need to
know what are my best options and how to get it done. We're happy, happy to answer it either way. For those of you who are looking at a landscape that was hammered by the drought, you need to call the folks at Piercescapes. And here's why. They specialize in turning what is and pretty into something that's gorgeous. They do that. Do you need shrubs replaced? Call them out and say, look, I need some drought resistant shrubs to go back in here. Do you want to go all out and I
mean create a beautiful backyard setting. We're talking about the hard escapes, the fountains, the landscape lighting. They can do that. They do drainage problems for a lot of you. When it rains, it stays two wet in places and it's a mess. Piercescapes can fix that. They know what they're doing, They know how to that kind of thing. Their phone number is two eight one three seven fifty sixty two eight one three seven fifty sixty.
Whatever's wrong in the landscape, you call them. You want something beautiful built, You want to have your sprinkler system evaluated and fixed. That's been one of the biggest problems we had last year. We had drought. It was a problem, and then on top of it, our irrigation systems were very inefficient. So you're spending all this money on water and you're not getting the full benefit of it because some places are getting too wet and other places are
too dry. Pierce Scapes can fix that. Piercescapes dot Com makes it real easy. We're going to go out to Lake Jackson. Now, I'm going to talk to Joanna. Hello, Joanna, Hey, how are you. I'm well, ma'am, how are you? I'm good good. I have a question, probably everybody else does, about the weeds that came from the drought. I already purchased this Scott's bonus is and I probably shouldn't have, but I'm kind of confused on to do it because I've got like lots of
dandelions and you're saying don't cut them and infertilize and wet. Do you have any It's hard to get the information off the internet on that. Yeah, the dandelion go ahead. Why I say, when do you recommend I do it? And when should I water it and cut it? And such? Well, the dandelions we usually treat with the post emergent weed killer one that kills weeds that are already growing. That would be the kind of thing that you would that you would want to do. Now you're going to find that
those can be spot sprayed. You don't have to treat the whole lown if because dandylions tend to be kind of here and there. Most people don't have wall to wall dandelions. But that that will do it for you. I generally don't recommend the bonus S. I just don't care for the ingredient that's in it, and that's been my problem with that. But you know you can if you got on hand, you use it. But I think you're going to do better with a spot spray of a post emergent broad leaf killer
on that dandelion. That's going to give you better results the bonus SS. UH. Well, what you know, what's what would you recommend? Uh? You could do if you're going to spray up like that. I would get a see Boneyed has a weed beater ultra that you can buy and it works very well. Your Ace Hardware stores are going to carry it down in the Lake Jackson region. UH and UH that would be one fertilough makes a
weed free zone. That's also a post emergent you spot treat Joan. I'm sorry, but I've got to leave for another commercial break here, but hopefully that'll get you off to the Yes, ma'am, all right, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Guarden Line. Glad you're with us today. We're going to talk to you about what you are interested in if you just give us a call seven to one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I it's one of the easiest things for me and recommending things for people is to tell them about ACE Hardware because ACE hardware is everwhere. Ace hardware carries the fertilizers I talk about. ACE Hardware carries soul mixes, blends, bags of those for you. They carry insecticide, pesticide in general, fungicides. We control all these things people keep calling about. Today. You're going to find it your local
Ace Hardware. There's a ton of ACE hardware. They're all over the place. Easy to find. Just go to acehardware dot com. Acehardware dot com find the store locator to find the store nearest jew With forty of them around, you're not going to have trouble finding an ACE Hardware. And when you walk in there, in addition to everything we're talking about for your lawn and garden, they've got everything for outdoor living and they have everything for indoor living
as well. It's just a beautiful place full of great ideas to help you turn your place indoors or outdoors into a much more warm and inviting, an enjoyable place. Can you smell barbecue right now? Can just imagine the wonderful imagine you're grilling on your own pit, and ACE Hardware has the highest quality of barbecue pits that you can get things like Big Green Egg and Trager.
They're gonna have Weber pits. They're gonna everything you need for that backyard patio, and this summer you're gonna need one to do the kind of grilling that you're gonna do. Acehardware dot Com just go and see what I'm talking about, and you'll know why I brag on them all the time and why I always love going in myself to an ACE Hardware store. I am gonna head out now to Beach City and we're gonna talk to Dwayne. Hello Dwayne, Hey, good morning, Rick. How are you they? I appreciate you
taking my calls. Hopefully you can point me in the right direction. I was looking to get a fig tree, and I live outside of Baytown, and I was wondering what's the best type of fig tree I should plan. Oh, there's a lot of good ones, lots of good figs to choose from. I personally like Celeste a lot. Celeste is a good fig. There is a Louisiana Purple and a Louisiana Gold. Those are two different figs that obviously are going to do well in our climate because they're bred just across
the river there in Louisiana at LSU. Those are excellent figs as well. But there are many, many other cultivars to choose from. Okay, do you know any location around the Baytown area that would sell those? Baytown area specifically, Let's see you got a little drive to go up to Moss Nursery and Seabrook, but not too bad. They would have them up there. I think Jorges Hidden Gardens has them as well. I'm pretty sure they do the last time I checked. You might try Hoorges Hidden gardens over in Alvin
and see if they have the varieties that you want. But they I could just almost guarantee you where he is going to happen because he carries a wide stock of things. Figs are super popular along the Gulf coast. Okay, so one more question. Whenever I plan them, should I mix two to one row soil and a leaf mulch? You keep boast with it? You can, you can, It's always good to improve the soil on plants.
But I'm telling you this, there was a fig industry, hundreds of acres of figs grown along the southe Houston area in the Gulf Coast area, and on a heavy black soils, and nobody was running through there with compost. You know, the figs are just a very forgiving plant. But if you do themend the soil, you help any plant a little bit. And so I would mix a compost in or something along those lines. But just know they're pretty pretty forgiving. All right, I appreciate it. Okay, thanks
a lot, good luck, good luck. Figs are wonderful. All I ask is that when your tree starts producing, bring half of what you grow to me at the radio station, and we will be happy to call that. Even that sounds reasonable, doesn't it? I think it does. At least it sounds reasonable to me. Hey, have you been to Buchanans in the Heights. They are loaded with plants. The color they have is outstanding. The native plant selection is unbelievable. I mean that Buchanan's native plants.
That's part of their name, and they have all kinds of good natives. Every time I go by there, it's like I didn't know that native was in the trade. Yep, it is. If it is, it's going to be a Buchanans, they're going to have it. One of my favorite little trees is Anakatcha orchid. It's a little white Bohinia tree and you just have to go see one as little white blooms. It's a small tree and it's a blooming tree that flowers in spring and summer. What a good thing.
Very tough, I mean, we used to grow those in Central Texas when I was over there. They're very drought resilient. Give it a little good drainage. You'll put the mound if you need to. But it's native to the Anacolta Mountains and it also all through Southwest Texas. There Anococha Orchid's just one of the many, many, many native plants that they have at Buchanan's Plants. Now. If you're looking for vegetables, herbs, they got them. If you're looking for shade plants, they've got them. Do you
need a vine, do you need a tropical houseplant? You're gonna find it all there. You need to go to the website Buchanansplants dot com. And when you go to Buchanan's Plants dot com, you see what I'm talking about. Sign up for their newsletter. Lots of good information and it keeps you up to date on everything that is happening at Buchanan's Plants. Find good success with that. We're going to head out to the Woodlands now and talk to
Andy. Hello. Andy, Yes, sir, I've got a bunch of coral setum growing as kind of a groundcover, and it looks really nice. It's a nice green color. It spreads out real quick. But I've also got a bunch of clover that's growing inside it, and I mean I try to pull out the clover. I'll spend all day pulling clover and then the next day is back again. Yeah, is there a way to eliminate the
clover without killing all the coral? Set them number one. I doubt you're going to find a herbicide with set them on the label, and I don't know. I wouldn't try it unless you just want to test it on a little spot to see how it does. It may be that the setum is resistant to some of these broad leaves, but I'm not going to take you to go go do it because I don't know. Mulching underneath the settum.
I know setum is. You know, normally we don't worry about mulching plants that are succulum because they're so tough, but you might try mulching underneath there. Clover sprouted in the fall, so late September early October in your area. Even late September, you need to have a mulch down to prevent the cool season weed seeds. So if you can get some mulch up under the settum, that would be one strategy on minimizing clover and other cool season weeds
that you're going to see sprouting in early fall. Okay, because one of the things I've read is that clover really doesn't like nitrogen. It doesn't. But yeah, but you could try that. I don't think that's going to eradicate it, but you could. You could try that. I think you're still going to have clover. It's it's not going to be thriving as well. Okay, So all right, I was hoping there might have been some sort of weed killer that attacks clover. I'll look into it, Andy.
I off top of my head, I don't know of one, but I do appreciate the call. I need to run, but I will see if I can find something on that. That's a unique question. But thanks for that, and I'll see what I can find out. Hey, if you need a tree, Verdant Tree Farm has got you set up. I mean, their selection of the palm trees is unbelievable. And you need a hearty palm, they can get you one of those too. Do you need a large shrub like an Eaglesoon holly or you know one of Nelie Stevens or one
of those kind of hollies. They carry large shrubs. Do you need a beautiful tree that is large? They have seven hundred gallon trees up to that size. You pick them out, they plant them. If they plant them you get a one year warranty on the tree as well. You're not gonna find better quality trees and a good selection like you'll find at Verdant Treefarm dot com. They're in West Houston on Parker Cyprus, or in Perland on Broadway Street. They're in the Heights where YO comes into it. In all places
you're gonna find Verdant Treefarm dot com. I just wanted to tell you that I'm gonna be today out at the Montgomery County Outdoor Living, Home and Garden Show that's just up in Conrod, Texas at the Lone Star Convention Center. This home and Garden show is free and free parking too. That is a good deal. I'll be there at twelve o'clock twelve noon. I'm going to give a about an hour talk answer your gardening question. I'll be giving away
a lot of different kinds of nitropos nitrophos, Nelson fertilizer. I've been saying all these names all day and coming together in my head at once. Nelson's got the genesis. That's a great mix for blending in to your transplant mix before you transplant a plant into the soil or into a container. I've got a lot of A Nelson products on many dinnerway, answering questions, and then after that, just one on one. This is your eye to eye time
with me. Bring me pictures, bring me samples, Let's talk about it. Let's figure out how to have a more beautiful on and a more bountiful landscape. I'll be there from twelve to two pm today. All of you up there willis Conroe Lake, Conro, the Woodlands. Come on up and see me. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scipe Directores, Mill, Crazy trim. Just watch you as a word us so many give
it set crazy bubbles troubles again. Welcome back to garden Line. I am your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening question. That's what we do. My goal is to turn brown thumb's green, because there's no such thing as a brown thumb. There's only uninformed thumbs. And that is what we will do. We will teach your thumb how to grow plants
and it'll turn green in the process. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Reel free to give us a call if you have a gardening question. Uh. For those of you that out in the Richmond area, you already know about in Chenna Gardens. You've been there before. If you haven't, crawl out from under the rock and go, because listen, this is a showplace. It is a beautiful place, and today and tomorrow are both
going to be excellent days to be at in Chened Gardens. When you go to Enchanted Gardens, you just find what you're looking for. Do you want vegetables or herbs or flowers, or do you want containers for plants or container plants growing and already planted in containers. Do you want shrubs, trees, roses, It's all there. And do you want people that know what they're talking about? Of course you do. This is one of those destination nurseries
in Chanded Gardens Richmond. By the way, the website is enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com in Chanted Gardens Richmond dot com. They're open money through Saturday eight to five today. As a matter of fact, they are open or tomorrow. Rather they'll be open from ten am to four pm. So this weekend is a time to get out to ingended gardens. You're going to find educated folks who shoot straight and direct you to the right plant for your situation.
Take them a picture of the landscape, take them a sample of something to look at, and say, what would you recommend. Maybe you're just going out there and you're wanting to put in a bed of color and you just want to know. Okay, there's plants everywhere with flowers, but I don't know how to put them together. Talk to them, say you know, what do you have? I'd like to do this, and they can put together the plants that you need to have success. That's what they do at
in Genda Gardens Richmond. You can always depend on good information, quality plants, and plus it is just fun to go through that place. By the way, they do have the fertilizers I talk about here on garden Line. They have products from Nature's Way, for example Landscaper's Pride and heirloom soils for taking care of the brown stuff. Remember, don't go home with just a plant, go home with something to build and improve your soil to make that
plant happy. That is important. Probably one of the key things people fail to do. James and Allen, Texas. How are you today, and welcome to Garden Line. Hey, your morning, skip, it's a Alvin Texas. Alvin okay, right yep, Alvin manble area. I'm looking for some expanded Shelle in my area without having to drive an hour away to the other side of Houston. Expanded shale in Allen, Texas. Let me see if I can come up with something like that down there, I think,
okay, all right, just hang on one second. Let me get my lo cater here out and see what I can find. Expanded shell is pretty widely available at the quality nurseries you know that we talk about here on Guarden Line. I mean they, yes, they absolutely. You know, we'll get you you squared up with that Alvin you're gonna have. I bet you can get expanded shale at Patco Hardware and Lumber. That's an ACEE heart ware store. I would talk to them and see. Ace Hardware usually will carry
something along those lines. If you can't find it, there would be the next place that I would go to. You're a ways away from some of the big nurseries that carry a lot yeah, those products, I guess Ace is the place I would I would suggest to start with on that. Other than that, you're going to need to go some distance and it's worth the trip. I mean, you're not that far away from Moss Nursery over at
Seabrook. It's a little drive, but not as far as a lot of the other places that I probably would say, go look there and see what they have. You know, where they're going to have it. I just can't believe it any I wasn't. I was looking to the right and not to the left. Siena Mulch, I bet has it. Give the folks at Ciena maltchakal and see. I'll bet you that they carry expanded shale. I'll say, I'll check it out. Yeah. Do you are you able to get in touch with them? Yes, sir, I'll find them on
the on the internet. I just I wasn't finding the keywords during my searches on Google yesterday at all the places. Okay, well, let me let me make it easy. I'm just going to give you the website Ciena multch dot com, Ciena multch dot com. Talk to them. I'll bet you your dollar donut that they've got that. All right, awesome. I appreciate it's good. Yeah, you bet you two. You know, expanded shale
is great, folks for opening up a heavy clay soil. You need to put a lot of it down because you're not just having a granular or two here in this soil. You know, I would I would recommend if you could put on about three inches of it and mix it in as deeply as you can. If you use less, that's fine, but the more you use, the better it is. The more shale to clay content you have, the better off it's going to be. And it really does help with
that kind of thing. Sweet Green is that organic product by nitrofos. It's eleven percent nitrogen, one of the highest organic fertilizers that in terms of nitrogen content that you're going to find wonderful fragrance because it's made from a molasses base. Microbes have a part in creating Sweet Green, and when you put it down, it dissolves the way well it moves into the soil. It's transitioned
into forms that the plants can easily take up. And you know, as simple as that Sweet Green is an excellent product, you will find that it will green up your lawn, and I just think is a really good product to use. Sweet Green from Nitrofoce is available everywhere nitroface is sold like D and D feed Up there in Toambol, you're going to find Sweet Green Lake Hardware, and Angleton you're going to find Sweet Green Fisher's Hardware. Down in
Baytown, You're going to find sweet Green sweet Green products. Pretty much your ace hardware stores are going to carry that as well as other quality products from nitrofos. Now's the time to get it out. Go ahead and put it out, now, get it down. It's not going to be as immediate release as like the nitrofoss Red Bag the Imperial, but it will release and your plants will take it up and they will thank you for it. And you don't just have to put it on launch. You can use it on
anything you want to give a little nitrogen boost too. Let's head out to Liberty. I tell you what, Rick in Liberty, I am running out of time for this segment, so I'm going to hold you. You will be absolute first up when we come back. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm sorry, I just keep listening to the song. I love that song. Kind of fun. Some of you may remember it as a matter of fact, you know Landscaper's Pride,
you may not be aware of the breadth of products that they offer. I mean, they have everything that you can imagine that you might need any kind of a mix for growing plants in twenty seven different bag products. You can go to Landscaperspride dot com and see more about it. But I just want to tell you about the pot Dirt. The pot Dirt is an OMRI certified organic soil super packed with nutrients, got worm casting sand, vermiculite, all
kinds of I mean, it's really a quality mix. Great for annual beds, for seasonal color changes where you just want a fast popa color, They've got it. Landscapers Mix help you renew the old beds. It's a good blend of fresh pine bark, rice holes, pearlite, slow release fertilizer. Excellent for improving your drainage. By the way, and then they're forty pound forty pound a potting soil bag. That is I like it. You can use it as is, or you can amend it to kind of go in
different directions. Maybe you're growing a succulent and you want to add some grit and grain to it. You know, the expanded jail we were just talking about, for example, could be added to that to make it even a better product for things like a cactus or a succulent. Very available, very versatile. That's just how it is with Landscapers Pride again Landscaperspride dot com. Check out their products and when you're there you can find out exactly where to
find them in your area. And they are very widely available here in the Greater Houston area. I want to head now to Liberty to talk to Rick. Hello, Rick, Hello skip from Thanks for taking look call. Yes, I'll tell him give a little information, uh like on tomatoes. That guy called in last week and he was wanted to take I think it was a helf variety. It's pretty sure what he was talking about is that today
it's a hybrid. Okay, I think he said he yeah. And if he takes the seeds and you know, the way you were talking about is a proper way to preserve him. But if he plans over, he's probably going to get a cherry tomato. Whatever the base was the hybrid was bred with, it won't be the same thing. And if you do try to grow tomatoes or anything, are the airlines. You got to keep myolator from
being a cross Polemators fast with tomatoes because they poleerate through the air. All right, Yeah, well we would have to isolate that tomato, probably in the greenhouse or something. Yeah, I don't I don't know what what the tomato type was. I just know it was from hot seed. Yeah, I think they call it. From what he was saying, I'm it's it's a hybrid. Well, it could be. That could be also with tomatoes. I was going to give a few corners on them. Well, rick
I'm not I'm not gonna have time for that. But did you have a question. No, it was just I just wanted to get that out there and waite people try to pick okrus you know, you know well Ricky, Yeah, Rick, You're correct, hybrid tomatoes are going to come any hybrid plants going to not come back true from sea. But thank you very much. I appreciate appreciate you taking time on that. RCW Nurseries I've talked about them earlier today, but they're the garden center that's right where two forty nine
comes into Belt way eight and RCW is going to have number one. They have one of the most wide varieties of roses I've ever seen. I mean pages and pages of roses that you can get from RCW. I was telling you earlier. Their Cajun hibiscus series is just I can't describe it, but let me just say that you're going to look at it and go, that's a lot of color for a hibiscus, and that is exactly what it is. It is a wonderful plant. I've got one myself at the house.
In fact, mine is waiting for it to warm up a little more where it can really take off and put on the show that those Cajun hibiscus have. By the way, the ones RCW has they already got blooms on them. They look really, really good. They have a good selection of trees. They grow trees themselves. They grow only the kinds of trees that belong here, that do well here at RCW. That's the garden center where two forty nine comes into belt wag eight. Here's the website. This is what
you need to write down. R CW Nurseries dot com, r CW Nurseries dot com, and that I'll get you right there to it. Let's head out. How let's feel now and talk to Gianna. Hello, Jianna,
Hi, how are you, sir? I'm well, Yes, I have a large live oak tree, it's got to be hundred fifty two hundred years old in our front yard and we have birds or stickers in our yard with the weeds, and we're putting down barricade and I have not put it on the side where the live oak tree is, and I was wondering, will that harm the live oak tree if we put it around the area that its root system is. Barricade will not. But here's what you here is.
This is I'm saying this about barricade, but it's true of any product like that you're going to put out. You follow the label, you put the right amount down, you put about a half inch of water to move it into the soil, So just a little water to wet it and move it in the soil. And those products are made to tie up in the surface of the soil because that's where they do their work. If they just washed right through the soil easily, they wouldn't be where they need to be.
When the weed starts to germinate, and so if you use it right, it is safe to use and around your trees. Well good. Can I ask you one more question about that a tree we would like to put just mulch under it, would that be okay? For the tree itself, it would absolutely be okay. Every tree drops its leaves on the ground to not only does it shade out grass with its canopy, but it drops the leaves on the ground to create a mulch and to decompose over time. And trees
love to have their leaves on the ground underneath them. One final question, is there any time specifically that we should trim back the liva tree during the year? I mean, should it be in the either early spring or early fall? Or can it be done anytime? The best time is toward the end of winter. That's the best you can trim a tree. Anytime you have to trim a tree, like if there's a need to get a branch off, you can do that anytime of the year. I don't know.
The oak quilt, and regarding Hallettsville, you're pretty far to the west of us here in Houston, but you always want to be careful with that. If you've got oak quilt centers near you, and you can go to texasoak wilt dot org and find out if you do UH. Then the minute you make a cut, you want to paint that cut. So the way I put it is cut prune with a saw in one hand and pruning paint in the other, just to create the mental image of I cut, I paint,
then I make another cut, and I paint it. Then I make another cut, because if you leave those cuts open, even for a few hours, there's the potential of a beetle coming in. They smell that cut and they infect the tree with oak quilt, and you don't want that. Wonderful Thank you so much. You've been so kind. I appreciate it all right. Have fun out there in Hallettsville. Thank you a lot. I appreciate your call very much. Heirloom Souls makes a something called a cocktail mix
and it is just outstanding. And they made it and they ran out of it because all of you went out there and cleaned them up. But you know what it is. It's a mix of different things that are quality, high quality that airloom soel sells. But you can get all those other products still and you can use them. Leaf mold compost one of the hottest products on the market, and Airroom Soils has a quality version of it. Heirloom Soils has things like the rose soil, things like the vegetable and herb mix,
and on and on. I could sit here all day just naming all the mixes that they have, the fruit and berry and citrus mix, for example, the leaf mol compost. You're gonna get airloom cells all over. They've also got the Works which is a potting soil. The Works is excellent for any kind of plants you're putting in a container. The Works will work. It's just that's probably the easiest way that I could put it is the Works Works. It makes it really real simple to know what's going on.
You know, the folks at Heirloom they have the expanded shale in bulk and bagged. So a while ago, who was it? Look at James and Alvin was looking for expanded shale, so way down there. If you Ace Hardware carries oldroom products, talk to your Ace Hardware store and say, hey, can you get me some of the expanded shail. They probably already have it, but if they don't, they're going to have the heirloom expanded bulk or maybe they can get it for you. That would be another good choice
as well. So just get out there and check out the products that they have. You can order bulk, you can order them to deliver it, you can go and get it from their location up there in Porter. I mean, it makes it really really simple. All Right, we're going to head now, let's see where we're going to go next. Well, I'll tell you what I want to talk. Just talk about plants for a little bit. I think that the most important thing you do, of course,
just take care of the brown stuff. But the one thing that people don't think about in spring is the fact that summer is coming. And so we have a lot of wonderful flowers that light up spring. We have flowers that can take the summer. We have flowers that do well in fall and in winter. And it comes down to how many color changes do you want to do. If some people do four color changes a year, some do three, some do two. They do a cool spring change and then they do
a fall change or for a cool season. If you're going to do some summer planting, their plants like angelonia, summer snapdragon, they look good now plant them now. They look good in spring, but they'll go through summer too, and you get more time of color as a result of that. I think that really is a good idea to be able to provide that. So we want to get plenty of color. Whenever we're putting things out. We don't use enough color. One last tip about the color is the you
want if you're going to view it up close. A lot of colors is very interesting. You can sit there and just say, oh, look at all those pretty colors. As you back away from a mix of one hundred different colors, it melts together into kind of one look. It's like pixelated TV screens used to be, or the news print that was pixelated. You get a magnifying glass and it's like, oh, I didn't know that. Have they made that color? Because they take all the colors and combine them
for that effect. Well, pixelate your landscape for up close, but use large, wide swaths of color. Buy a bunch of it, use a section or a swath or a band, and as you get further away, like out at the street, it's going to look really really good. Just a little bit of a strategy there to kind of help you along in that. You've heard me talk about talk about turf Star products from Nelson's before. Turfstar Weedonator is an outstanding product. Turfstar weedenator will not only feed your lawn,
but it helps stop the weeds that are existing. So I wouldn't call it a weed and feed. I would call it a feed or a weed then feed. So here's what you do. You wet your grass and the weeds that you have right now. This is for cool season weeds, which is the only weed you're seeing right now is cool season weeds. Okay, you wet them, you put on the turf Star weedonator. It sticks to that wet weed leaf. That's why wedding is so important. So don't wet
them this morning and go put it out this afternoon. Plants are going to be dry. You want them wet, Okay. Then you wait about two days and you water it in really well. That gives it time to be taken up. Then that nutrient moves to the ground and Turfstar Weedonator is a slow release fertilizer that gradually over time over two or three months, is releasing your fertilizer to your growing grass as it wakes up and starts to grow.
It's a good combination. It works very well. Just want you to understand how it works. You can use it accordingly. Yeah, that is really important to take care of it that way. Well, you know, I talking about some tips and some things to kind of help you have success with your garden and with your landscape. I just wanted to mention that we don't grow enough herbs in our landscapes. And you know there are herb gardens, and if you want to make that beautiful geometric herb garden, go for it.
Those are great. But herbs do well in containers. They do well in garden beds. We have herbs like salid burnet that makes a little mounding plant that could be used to line a border of a bed, chives or the same way lining the border of a bed. We have herbs that are groundcovers, like a regano and marjoram and time for example. We have herbs that are beautiful bloomers. Copper canyon, well, that is a beautiful bloomer, but it's not an herb. Mexican marigold would be a good example of
that for a fall bloomer. It does super well. As an herb. Pineapple sage is a type of salvia that has pineapple scented leaves that people use in decorating cakes and things. It blooms with a beautiful red bloom that attracts butterflies. Why not put some herbs in your vegetable garden, especially the ones that bloom, because blooming herbs bring in small beneficial insects that will be there to help you deal with aphids and other pests in the garden. Herbs can
be used in a strategy. You can do a multi herb container. You could have a plant that has a beautiful flower, or a container a beautiful flour in the center and an herb like a regano is spilling over the side. There's so many types of time. I mean, just there's one called silver time that as you would think, it's a silvery color, real beautiful.
There's a lemon thyme. I just think we need to use more herbs, and they have many many benefits and I'm just kind of touching on a few, but don't if you like, you have to have an herb garden to have herbs. Our garden centers are stocked up with them right now and when you go bring some other things home, don't forget to include some herbs. Our phone number seven one three two kt r H. I'll be right back. Wellcome back to the garden line. Good to talk to you again.
Uh, let's see, we're gonna I'm just gonna jump right out and go to the phone's first thing right off the bat here. We are going to go to Cypress and talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Hi, good morning, Skip. How are you. I'm well, thank you. I have a question. I'm sure you probably have never had this asked. I went to my Langham Creek Ace and Cyprus. Yes, and uh, I bought some Brussels sprouts. But the plant they're small plants. It's like
a six pack or something. But I've been doing some research and they say Brussels sprouts are cool, like a cool weather vegetable. Okay, So my question is is there a reason I know that they changed ownership at Billingham Creek. I know they changed ownership like in December, But is there a reason why they would sell it? Is it okay for me to plant it? Where? Should I plan it? More? Even a shady area? If I plan it? All? Right? Well, let me answer all those
questions. Uh So, Brussels sprouts or a cool seasoned vegetable as is broccoli and kale and cabbage and cauliflower, they take a little longer to go from seed to harvest. They're a little little like cabbage is a little bit slower. Brussels sprouts are a little bit slower. But garden centers will keep them
on hand because people want to try them and grow them. They're not going to be there a long time, much much now that we've hit this point in the season, but gordon plant them, plan them in a full sun area, and just kind of keep eye on them. And at some point if you will cut the top out, not when they're young, but when you've got a good stalk and they got the leaves up and down the stalk, go ahead and cut the top out of the stalk to force some of
the side buds to grow a little faster. Normally, that's not how we do bustle spouts, but you can do that speed it up a little bit and get those little side bulbs that you're gonna want to harvest as you get into hotter weather. Any of those cabbage family plants, the flavor becomes a little stronger. They're all part of the mustard family. I said cabbage, but that's all part of the mustard family. So generally I will plant them in the fall just to have it harvest in a real cool time of the
year. But people do plant them in spring as well. Yeah, and since I've already purchased them, there's no reason to return them. So I'm gonna see, no need what happens. Yeah, And I'm gonna see what happens, and I'll report back to you, all right, let me know, you know, let me just tell you this. All of those blue leaf vegetables, and I'm going to say the names again. It's kale, cabbage, cauliflower, kolrabbie, Brussels sprouts, collars. I'm leaving, but
yeah, all of those. You can eat the leaves of them if you want, and if they're young and tender, they're okay to eat because all of those plants are the same plant that were selected for different plant parts. With krabi, we got a swollen stem. With broccoli, and cauliflower, we got blooms that we're eating with kale, and collars, we're eating the leaves with brussels sprouts reading the side bud with cabbage reading the top terminal bud
on the plant, and it's all edible. You can do that. I wouldn't plant Brussels sprouts to eat the leaves, but you can, Okay. Can I ask you one more question the Brussels sprouts when I do uh transplant it? Yes, I know you. You tell me the youth has to grow uh to transplant and stuff? Yeah, uh, And I've got it at home. I've been watering with it with my eggplant. Blah bla blah all that stuff. But my question is this, when I do plant it, do I does it need to be in more sun than okra and tomatoes
or about the same sun. Remind me what the plant you were saying. What did you're asking about? Brussels Russels spread more sun, lots of sun. Oh? Now, can you grow them in shade? Yes? All the blue lee vegetables in a bright shade will grow. But we're wanting this thing to get going and get moving because you're planting it toward the end of the season. So I would put it in sun. But normally you could grow it in a bright shade or sun. Is that okay? There was
a pause like that's not the answer you wanted to hear. I can make up other ends. Thanks for the calls, Andy, appreciate, appreciate that very much. Have you been to Nelson water Garden out in Katie by the way? Nelson's Uh, the name is water garden because that's what they know, that's what they do, that's what they're national leaders in. Really. I mean we're talking about coy Pond's we're talking about a water garden. Plants like lilies that are just gorgeous. Yeah, they have all that. They
originated. The disappearing fountain container imagine a big, tall, beautiful vase, one that just the container itself is just worth looking at. It's gorgeous. Water coming out of the top, goes to the bottom, goes into some pebbles, and it disappears and it's being pumped back up to the top. They have the best selection that you're going to find anywhere. It is incredible, and it's all set up so that when you walk through, you just
get one scene after another where you can imagine that in your yard. I mean, it's fun just to walk through the place and see what's going on there. Now it's a nursery. It's also a nursery, so they have all kinds of plants that are really good. By the way, there are hours this spring now Monday through Saturday nine to six. That would be today nine to six or tomorrow Sunday eleven to four. It's always a good time.
It's just out and Katie. Just think of it as a West Houston nursery that you can get to. Lots to see, lots to do. Just head out there. If you want to look online, you can see their website at Nelsonwatergardens dot com Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Bring the kids are gonna have fun looking at the koi and the shabuken. I just learned how to say that word rale was out there, by the way, shabukin to beautiful multicolored fish. They'll get you stocked up on all that and more. We're
going to head out now to Grove, Texas and talk to Julie. Hello, Julie, Hi, here are you? I'm good? How can we help good? Okay, we are putting up an above ground pool and we got a side cutter we rented out and we removed all the grass where the pool is going to go okay, And we kind of tried to do our research on what we could put down on the dirt for we got moving forward to kill the grass okay that could pop up, and my husband bought a
bag of hydrated lime. All right, We're just kind of wanting to put something down that will kill anything that could kind of grow up within the next you know, a few months or anything. We just don't want grass growing through the liner. So I was wanting, well, if it's in above ground pool lineerer, grass isn't going to grow through it. It'll shade it out, Okay. I mean if I'm assuming the liner blocks light, so that shouldn't be a problem. Hydrated lime is used to stabilize a clay soil
that move a lot. It's used by the U you know, road departments and stuff when they're building. But let me, let me do this. I got to take a break here. I'll come back to you and we'll finish this conversation, and Kevin, you will be the first up. Our number is seven one three two one two k t RHLV. Right back, Julie, Welcome back to Guardline. Sometimes I like these songs so much it's hard to get going back on the show again, good good, good music.
Good to hear. Hey, we're going to go back and finish our conversation here with Julie. Julie, so you're gonna put the pool liner down. I am not that familiar with pool liners, but I would think they would stop the light. And if they stop the light, you shouldn't have a problem there. There are a few weeds that are pretty punctuary, like nuts edge for example. Again, I think I would hope the pool liner would give enough. But if you've got nuts edge, that is a problem.
You don't you don't want that. I would get the strongest, heaviest duty landscape fabric as you can get, and I would lay that down underneath and so as opposed to like putting some poison down there to kill everything that's going to break down in time. Anyway, get a heavy and I don't mean just a typical one. I mean go somewhere you know you can.
You can talk to the folks at Microlife. They it's Sancha sent A supply as a company, their wholesale, they don't sell retail, But explain to them you need the densest, toughest woven material needs to be a woven material. Uh, and they will tell you who they sell to. They can do that. You may need to hire somebody to come out, or maybe you can find the roles. But the strongest version of that will stop nutsedge.
The rest of it, the nutsedge pops right through. Yeah, so would we do you think we'd be wasting or time putting that line down?
Yes? Should we not even do that? Okay? Okay? The only purpose of lime When you watch them build a new road, you got these big giant bulldozer sized machinery that are plowing the soil behind them and you'll see white stuff and they're mixing lime into that soil to stabilize it so it doesn't move because you don't want it moving when you got you okay, okay, Well, thank you so much, you bet, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that. If you're looking for a quality potting soil, jungle land is going to be an excellent choice because it comes in two forms. There's the jungle land flower and vegetable potting soil, and then there's a jungle land water savor potting soil that we use for indoors, flower and vegetable outdoors
water saver indoors, and they both work really well. They got a blend of organic materials, decomposing organic matuals, microizel fungi, and you're going to find them everywhere you would find nitroposs products, which they're available, widely available, all across the region. Really, the ACE out there in Single Ranch has got those kind of products. The ACE, the Lake Hardware hardware and Clute has got those products. In fact, a task a seeta ACE has
them. You know, with ACE hardware, it's kind of the go to place for nitrofoss, but all kinds of other products too. If you hear me talk about a fertilizer, ACE has it. If you hear me talk about things like soil mixes and sublends and things, they've got it. They carry everything. Do you need to control pest weeds or diseases, They've got it. Do you need a water hose, do you need some tools?
Do you want to create a beautiful outdoor setting on your patio. There's a lot of blind that ACE hardware carries that really transforms an area like that. And I just find that when you walk into ACE Hardware, there is no way you're getting out there without finding eight hundred things that you look at and you go, oh my gosh, I did not know they had that, and I would love to have that for my house. That's Ace Hardware.
Acehardware dot Com is the website. Just go to that website Acehardware dot Com. What you're going to find there when you get there is the Ace Hardware stores near you. They have a little store locator on the website and it'll take you right too the forty Ace Hardware store so you can see the stores. That's wirl because yeah, there are that many of them that are nearest to you. And with Ace, they say Ace is the place for I would just say ACE is the place because it's got whatever you need. We're
going to head out now to Paarland and talk to Kevin. Hello, Kevin, Hey, good mom kid. That previous caller. She could use synthetic roofing underlayment underneath that pool, and I guarantee you there won't be a weed that comes through that. Synthetic roofing underlam is that kind of a spun or felty kind of product. It's it's felt on one side, but then the material on the back side of it is that of like a tarp. Yeah, that's what we put down on roofs. I'm a roof for and I
mean it. We can barely put nails through it much less a week going through there? You go, Hey, where do you get it? Where do you get synthetic rreer? You could, you know, pick it up at Low's a. You know they're going to have a good roll of it. That would be my suggestion. Thanks for that tip. Is that why you called her? Do you have a question? No? I had a question. Man. I was cleaning, cleaning out my little chimney, you know from burning, you know, just logs and whatnot, little you know,
fire stuff. And I've got probably a five gallon bucket of the ash. Okay, is it good to just dump in the yard or dumping the flower bed? I mean, ash is high and potassium and other minerals, and it's okay. But it's also very high in pH. So if you
already have a high pH soil, you're pushing it the wrong direction. But when I used to work in Aggerlife Extension, we had a little sheet that said put this many pounds per hundred square feet in the vegetable garden, and this many on your lawn, and you just don't want to overdo it. So if you want to use it, you can use it. Just spread
it out very thin, don't dump it in one spot. I don't know if you've ever seen the old burn piles and pastures where they burn brush year after year and then nothing wants to grow there because it's just super concentrated ash. Hey, I appreciate your question very much, but that that's what my recommendation would be. Thank you. I appreciate both the comments and the questions there. You know, Medina products are a wide variety of quality products that
absolutely make your plants happy. You've heard me talk about Medina hastro Grow six twelve six three products in one Medina Soil Activator. It's got the nitrogen phosphorsassium plant food, and it's also got humid humic Acid's got seaweed extracts at me all of it folier feeding, drenching in new plants. It works really really well. They also have has to Grow twelve four eight. That is a lawn food, a liquid lawn food. Plus you hook it up to a
hose and you just spray it through your lawn. I used some last year. It'll give you a nice green up in your lawn. Just follow the label. It automatically dilutes it to the rate that you want it to be deluded to. Makes it really really easy. Now, if you're gonna leave your grass clippings on, you only need to do about four times a year
with the Medina has to grow twelve four eight liquid lawn food plus. If you're going to remove your grass clippings number one, I don't know why you would do that, because that is nature's own free, slow release fertilizer that you just put nutrients down to grow grass clippings, and now you're taking those nutrients and giving them somebody holloway, But I know people do that, So if you do, then you're gonna need to do it. The Medina has
to grow twelve four eight liquid lawn food plus every month. Okay, return the clippings four times a growing season. Don't reach in their clippings every month during the growing season to use that product. Either way you want to go about it, it's gonna work really well. And there are a lot of Medina products that have just wonderful seaweed products, fish and motion products. The Medina sol Activator I mentioned you're going to find everything that you would need to
make your plants happy with. The Medina product line works really well. I've used it myself. I still do you know. Like I said, if I'm going to recommend a product, I'm gonna have tried it. Are scene research that proves it one way or the other. I need to believe it. Like the guy in Missouri the show me State that says, show me well, I'm gonna have to show myself that it works before I talk about it. And Medina product work. It's as simple as that. I've tried
them and I've used them. Well. We put another show of Guardline in the books here, don't forget. You can listen to the past shows via podcast. You can listen live also on your iHeartMedia app. There's probably some other apps to do that as well. Jize iHeartMedia. I And so you're out in the garden, turn your phone upside down. The speaker's on the
bottom side, right, No, it's on the top side. I don't know anyway, Stick in your pocket and go out and do your garden work, and I'll be coaxing you and directing along the way, telling you what I think might work. And if you have a question, you can give us a call right there. From out in the garden, Live from the garden, I'm sitting here in a bunch of weeds. What do I do?
Skip? Well, if you'd like to do that today, show up at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show at the Lone Star Convention Center in Conroa, Texas. I'm leaving right now, I'm heading up there. I'll be there from twelve o'clock to two. First hour talking about gardening, answering your questions. Second hour, come up one on one, Bring me samples, bring me photos, let's fix things at your house.